---
id: "action-rethink-freemium"
type: "action-item"
source_timestamps: ["§ Lessons for Rightsholders", "¶12"]
tags: ["business-model", "paywalls", "anti-scraping"]
related: ["claim-paywall-protection", "framework-rightsholder-defense"]
action: "Shift away from open-web freemium models and place valuable IP behind paywalls to block AI crawlers."
outcome: "Forces AI companies to negotiate licensing deals rather than indiscriminately scraping free content."
sources: ["tail2"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-tail2"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-tail-126-genai-copyright"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/07/can-gen-ai-and-copyright-coexist"
sourceTitle: "Can Gen AI and Copyright Coexist?"
---
# Move Content Behind Paywalls

**Action (rightsholders):** Shift away from open-web freemium/ad-supported models and place valuable IP behind paywalls (plus terms of use, authentication, robots.txt) to block AI crawlers.

**Expected outcome:** Forces AI companies to the negotiating table rather than scraping free content.

**Why it works:** Evidence and logic in [[claim-paywall-protection]]; it is step 1 of [[framework-rightsholder-defense]]. **Caveats to weigh:** paywalls are "leaky" and do not automatically defeat every fair-use claim over snippets/headlines/embeddings; over-paywalling can also harm open access and education.