ArtistScope Forum

While this sounds like a good idea, I am wondering how can search engines be made to pay for access rights?

hanstek wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 1:01 am how can search engines be made to pay for access rights?

What choice will they have if they want to use your content?

Sure, we all publish content to enhance rankings, but that content is instead being used by AI bots that are not returning any credit whatsoever.

And yes, if you protect your content then AI bots might use content from other sites, but still not give any credit for it, not even a link for more info like normal search results used to be like.

The point of Safeguard Cloud is more about preventing bots and scrapers in a such a way that it cannot be exploited or cheated.

If and when bots appreciate that they can gain access by paying your tariff, the means to do that and monitor that activity is incorporated into your Safeguard Cloud interface.

How will bots know that they can pay and where to pay?

How much can I be paid for my content?

hanstek wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 1:15 am How will bots know that they can pay and where to pay?

Bots and scrapers are redirected to a message explaining their lack of access and links for subscribing to join the Safeguard Cloud Paywall.

If any AI bots are intelligent all they should notify their human.

hanstek wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 1:15 am How much can I be paid for my content?

Each site can nominate their own rate. What you nominate is up to you to decide.

For example if you have unique content that others may need to further their education, you can ask any price. However if it is part of an online course, you may not want to allow bot access at all, and instead apply the DRM option for users to purchase a DRM Token.

But if you have thousands of web pages/articles, you can ask for as little a 0.01 cents for hit.

It's all up to you and every bot joining the Paywall will be billed for the pages that they scrape at the tariff nominated by those sites.

Do I have any choice over which bots can gain access?

hanstek wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 1:28 am Do I have any choice over which bots can gain access?

Yes. You can review the list of bots who have joined the Paywall and any that you want to block can be added to your own personal blocklist.

Consequently, when bots crawl member sites, they start from a crawl list of available sites. If you have blocked a bot, then that bot will not have access to your site.

For example you could allow access to your own in-house search engine, or only allow access to Google and Bing.

Who can gain access is up to you to decide.