The Power of the Collective:

24 March | 17:00 CET / 09:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT

Speaker:
John Boyden | Head of Partnerships, RSL Collective, US

Moderators:
Ezra Eeman | Lead, AI in Media, WAN-IFRA
Kevin Anderson | Director of the Digital Revenue Network, WAN-IFRA London

About this webinar:
The landscape of AI licensing is shifting from bilateral deals to collective action, supported by bot management, technical standards, emerging marketplaces and industry action. In this month’s webinar, we’ll focus on one emerging technical standard – Really Simple Licensing (RSL). The machine-readable open web standard enables publishers and creators to define licensing and compensation terms for AI companies’ use of their content. More than 1,500 leading media organizations and platforms — including Reddit, Yahoo, People Inc, Ziff Davis, USA Today, and Wikipedia — support Really Simple Licensing (RSL) because they see it as a way to gain fair compensation for their content from AI companies. 

As Head of Partnerships at RSL, John Boyden has been key to building the technology and journalism industries’ support of  RSL. This session provides an overview of the role the RSL standard plays, the “strength in numbers” approach to tech partnerships, and the practical governance models being deployed in 2026.

Key Takeaways:

• The Collaborative Model: Understanding the role of the RSL plays in creating a collective licensing mechanism and response to AI companies. 
• Strategic Rights Management: How RSL’s machine-readable licensing standard protects intellectual property in an automated ecosystem.
• Partnership Principles: Exploring the core pillars that define sustainable, long-term relationships between media and technology platforms.
• Market Trends: An overview of the 2026 AI content market and the evolving expectations for content valuation.

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The webinar is open to both members and non-members, will be held in English on Zoom, and will be recorded for internal reference. The recording and related content, including presentations, will be made available on the WAN-IFRA Knowledge Hub, our premier online resource exclusively for WAN-IFRA members.

Stay updated on AI in Media (AIM): www.wan-ifra-aim.org