Yahoo Scout becomes first client of ILC’s AI content licensing collective

The Internet Licensing Collective said on 12 November 2026 that it has launched with Yahoo Scout, Yahoo’s AI answers tool, as its first paying customer. The nonprofit, formerly known as the RSL Collective, says more than 3,000 media brands and publishing platforms back it, and that it sells AI content licensing through a single blanket agreement.

ILC offers one license for training, grounding and AI overviews

According to the announcement, AI companies sign one agreement instead of negotiating with each publisher. They pick only the uses they need, such as model training, retrieval for answers, agents or AI-generated overviews. Publishers join for free, choose which licenses to opt into and keep any direct deals they already have.

ILC says it will split income by how content is used and how much it adds to an AI product, not by the size of a publisher’s catalogue. It plans to keep operating costs at or below 10% and pass the rest to rights holders. The group co-wrote the RSL standard, a machine-readable way for websites to state licensing terms for AI use.

Yahoo’s Eric Feng links the deal to answer quality

Eric Feng, who runs Yahoo Research Group, said in the release that AI answers are only as good as their sources. Search Engine Roundtable described ILC as one of several groups now trying to get AI firms to pay for content. Neither side disclosed what Yahoo will pay or for how long.

Other routes exist. Google’s AI contribution pilot pays about 100 publishers directly. The pressure on publishers shows in their own numbers: People Inc. web sessions fell 26% in Q3 as Google traffic weakened.

Mather Economics sizes the market in the tens of billions

On the same day, Mather Economics published a report that it says ILC did not commission or fund. It estimates that AI companies could afford to pay 15% to 35% of their revenue for licensed content. Using the run-rate revenue of the two largest model makers only, it puts the collective licensing market in the tens of billions of dollars.

For a publisher, joining costs nothing, and ILC’s own target caps its cut at 10% of revenue. What is still missing is a price. Until Yahoo or a second buyer discloses a rate, the 15% to 35% range is Mather’s estimate rather than a figure anyone has paid.