The Internet Licensing Collective, a nonprofit, publisher-led licensing collective for Internet publishers and creators, launched the other day with Yahoo Scout as its first commercial partner. Through the ILC, Yahoo Scout will pay publishers for using their content in its AI responses.
In short, the ILC is another organization looking for ways to get AI companies to pay for using your content in their AI responses.
The press release, "Today, a group of more than 3000 media brands, content owners and publishing platforms, including the leading sources powering frontier AI models, launched the Internet Licensing Collective (ILC), a nonprofit, publisher-led collective rights organization making AI content licensing practical at internet scale."
"Yahoo Scout, a new AI answers tool from Yahoo, is confirmed as ILC’s first commercial licensee," it added.
“AI answers are only as good as the sources behind them,” said Eric Feng, SVP and GM of Yahoo Research Group. "Our agreement with ILC is one way we’re continuing to innovate and work to support publishers as we build on the trusted experience Yahoo Scout delivers to our users.”
“The internet doesn’t need another black-box payment experiment,” said Doug Leeds, co-founder of ILC. “ILC was built by content owners to be the opposite: a transparent, durable licensing system with clear, incentive-aligned allocation rules. This is real infrastructure for a thriving AI economy—not a hedge against it.”
Continued Leeds, “Yahoo Scout, an AI answers tool from one of the internet’s largest platforms with more than 30 years in search and a long history of supporting publishers and the open web, has chosen to participate in this new scalable way to access and pay publishers for high-quality content. This is just the beginning.”
Brian Provost from Yahoo said on X, "AI answers are only as good as the sources behind them. ILC gives publishers a new option for fair, transparent compensation, and gives Yahoo Scout a scalable way to access more trusted content. This agreement is one way we’re continuing to support publishers as we build on the trusted experience Yahoo Scout delivers to our users."
Today, 3,000+ publishers launched the Internet Licensing Collective, and it was announced that Yahoo Scout is its first commercial licensee. 🎉
AI answers are only as good as the sources behind them. ILC gives publishers a new option for fair, transparent compensation, and gives Yahoo Scout a scalable way to access more trusted content. This agreement is one way we’re continuing to support publishers as we build on the trusted experience Yahoo Scout delivers to our users.
Thanks to everyone who came together to get this done.
https://t.co/7OymRRyNNM
— Brian Provost (@brianprovost) November 12, 2026
There are a handful of organizations working on ways to help publishers and creators monetize their content in this AI world - here is one more.
Forum discussion at X.
