# Really Simple Licensing (RSL) vs CoMP (Content Monetization Protocols)

The map lists them as complementary: sites and agents commonly implement both.

[3 Permit](/category/permit/) [Really Simple Licensing](/protocols/rsl/) · [3 Permit](/category/permit/) [CoMP (Content Monetization Protocols)](/protocols/iab-comp/)

|  | [Really Simple Licensing](/protocols/rsl/) RSL | [CoMP (Content Monetization Protocols)](/protocols/iab-comp/) CoMP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Lifecycle step | 3 Permit: What may the agent do here? | 3 Permit: What may the agent do here? |
| Answers | What machine-readable license, price, and authorization terms govern how AI systems and crawlers may access or reuse a publisher's content? | How does a licensed AI system ask a publisher or content marketplace for content, saying who it is, how it authenticates and what it will use the content for? |
| Governed by | RSL Collective, a vendor consortium; issue tracker at github.com/rslstandard/rsl | IAB Tech Lab; specification under CC-BY 3.0 in github.com/IABTechLab/CoMP |
| Status (issuer's words) | Recommendation (RSL's own maturity label, not a W3C/IETF Recommendation) — Document RSL-SPEC-1.0, Category 'Industry Specification' | CoMP v1 (Final): open for public comment until 2026-04-09 and finalized 2026-04-28, per IAB Tech Lab's initiative page |
| Version | RSL 1.0 (2025-12-10) | CoMP v1 (Final) (2026-04-28) |
| Form / transport | document format | endpoint |
| Found at | /rsl.xml | none defined; supply discovery is explicitly out of scope, and terms are reached through a licenseurl in the response |
| Implementation | shipping | none found |
| Evidence | 2 verified | 2 verified |
| Primary use case | Control AI crawling and training use | Serve readable content to agents |
| Last verified | 2026-10-23 (current) | 2026-10-23 (current) |
| Specification | [https://rslstandard.org/rsl](https://rslstandard.org/rsl) | [https://github.com/IABTechLab/CoMP/blob/main/CoMP-1.0.md](https://github.com/IABTechLab/CoMP/blob/main/CoMP-1.0.md) |

## When to use which

- Choose Really Simple Licensing when your question is “What machine-readable license, price, and authorization terms govern how AI systems and crawlers may access or reuse a publisher's content?” and you accept its maturity: status "Recommendation (RSL's own maturity label, not a W3C/IETF Recommendation) — Document RSL-SPEC-1.0, Category 'Industry Specification'", implementation shipping.
- Choose CoMP (Content Monetization Protocols) when your question is “How does a licensed AI system ask a publisher or content marketplace for content, saying who it is, how it authenticates and what it will use the content for?” and you accept its maturity: status "CoMP v1 (Final): open for public comment until 2026-04-09 and finalized 2026-04-28, per IAB Tech Lab's initiative page", implementation none found.

Guidance is derived from the two records (question, status, implementation, prerequisites, pairings), not from opinion. Each record's page carries its numbered references.

## Read the full articles

- [Really Simple Licensing](/protocols/rsl/): What machine-readable license, price, and authorization terms govern how AI systems and crawlers may access or reuse a publisher's content?
- [CoMP (Content Monetization Protocols)](/protocols/iab-comp/): How does a licensed AI system ask a publisher or content marketplace for content, saying who it is, how it authenticates and what it will use the content for?

Ask the MCP server to compare any two: the compare-protocols prompt, or get on both ids. [Connect](/connect/).

[rsl.json](/data/protocols/rsl.json) · [iab-comp.json](/data/protocols/iab-comp.json) · [Markdown](/compare/rsl-vs-iab-comp/index.md)