Creative Commons tentatively supports pay-to-crawl technology, which would require AI crawlers to pay websites for accessing their content. This comes as AI chatbots increasingly provide answers directly, reducing web traffic and advertising revenue for publishers. Pay-to-crawl systems could restore some value to content creators, especially smaller publishers lacking individual negotiation power with AI firms. However, Creative Commons highlights risks including potential concentration of power and restricted public-interest access. It recommends principles like throttling access, openness, and preserving public content availability. Companies like Cloudflare and Microsoft are investing in pay-to-crawl, while standards like Really Simple Licensing aim to regulate crawler permissions.