Creating a New Internet Bargain to Preserve Fair Use and Protect the Commons | TechPolicy.Press

Public Knowledge’s call, alongside Creative Commons’ proposal, to establish new “internet bargain” principles aims to preserve fair use and protect the commons as AI systems increasingly scrape and repurpose web content. For website owners, this signals that regulators and advocacy groups may soon demand clearer disclosures about how AI bots access site data, and could push for enforceable limits on large‑scale crawling that infringes fair‑use norms. Expect tighter scrutiny of bots that harvest text, images, or code without respecting robots.txt or emerging llms.txt conventions, potentially leading to legal pressure or mandatory compliance frameworks. Actionable steps: 1. **Implement an llms.txt file** that explicitly defines permissible AI uses of your content—e.g., allowing non‑commercial summarization but blocking commercial model training. 2. **Deploy bot‑tracking tools** (such as server‑side logs analysis or third‑party services) to differentiate between benign search crawlers and aggressive AI scrapers, and set rate‑limits or CAPTCHAs for the latter. 3. **Audit your robots.txt** to ensure it aligns with the new principles, adding directives that reference your llms.txt policy and providing a contact point for AI developers seeking permission.