16 Oct 2025 Search

Update: Update on CC Signals: What Changed and Why - Creative Commons But as we began consulting with our community, it became clear that this approach was not enough. The feedback was direct and consistent in stating that preference signals without enforcement do not meaningfully shift power. Signals alone cannot create agency in a system that many people did not choose to participate in. That feedback forced us to confront some of our own assumptions.

Previously: fair use alignment chart

It’s pretty clear that we need some kind of open content license that allows for Creative Commons-style re-use by other writers or artists, but also includes some kind of protection from machine learning training. We’re not getting a noai license from the original Creative Commons organization, though. Instead, they’re offering a separate signals system with at least one major loophole that would make it ineffective in practice. There is no requirement in the license to preserve the signal, so an AI firm could encourage someone else to mirror your site without the signal, then crawl the mirror. Not a big obstacle for an industry that’s already running at supervillain scale.

Humans Commons is offering a set of licenses that help define how IP can be interacted with by both Humans and non-Human entities, such as AI systems and automated tools. Their approach addresses some of the concerns that are keeping me from using a Creative Commons license on this site. Right now, what’s missing from Human Commons is a short list of practical web nerd features, and an update to help protect authors from having their content used for surveillance advertising. These are my notes on AI0-BY-SA, which is the license that’s closest to what I would want for this blog.

4.1.1 Can the attribution requirement be extended to include a requirement to preserve rel=author and rel=canonical links if a full page of the work is used in a medium where it is possible to preserve them? (SEO is a practical issue with CC-licensing web content today)

4.5.2 Include a requirement to preserve any machine-readable AI opt-out signals present on the original site? (this would fix the CC license/CC signal loophole linked to above.)

9 Termination if the licensee sues the author or host for patent infringement? Borrow from open-source software licenses? (Not sure which license currently has the best patent clause, some research is needed.)

Human Commons is also an opportunity to get ahead of AI privacy threats. Right now there is a widely recognized client-to-server opt out preference signal, but we’re missing an opt-out preference that goes the other way, from server to client (see SPC: an X-Robots-Tag for privacy control).

While you’re taking steps to deny the use of your content for AI slop, it would also make sense to deny permission to use it for surveillance. A privacy section in the Human Commons license could include

  1. Author withdraws consent to processing of any personal information contained in or inferred from this work

  2. Author objects to processing of any personal information contained in or inferred from this work

  3. Author opts out of sale and/or sharing of any personal information contained in or inferred from this work

  4. Author opts out of the use of any personal information contained in or inferred from this work for behavioral and/or personalized advertising.

And yes, none of the current state privacy laws explicitly cover a server to client OOPS but it should be possible to include you must respect my OOPS as a condition of the license.