TDM & Model Training

The policy depends on date. Under V1 and V2 ENTIA granted broad positive permission for discovery, public search, indexing and fresh retrieval, without extending that permission to training. From V3, effective 2026-09-19T03:08:41Z, those positive automated permissions were prospectively withdrawn. Across all versions, the Article 4(3) reservation operates only where applicable rights are engaged and does not by itself turn an access event into proof of TDM, training or infringement.

• Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790 — the general (commercial) TDM exception applies only where use has not been expressly reserved by the rightholder, including by machine-readable means for content made publicly available online.
• Article 7 of Directive 96/9/EC — the maker's sui generis right against extraction and/or re-utilisation of the whole or a substantial part of a database, where there is qualifying substantial investment.
• Article 53(1)(c) of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act) — providers of general-purpose AI models must put in place a policy to identify and comply with reservations of rights expressed pursuant to Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790.

The TDM Rights Reservation (expressed concurrently through tdmrep.json, the tdm-reservation HTTP header on every apex response, the Content-Signal lines in robots.txt and /ai.txt), together with the Train section of the Data Licensing Framework and Annex C of the contract stack, under which Foundational training is gated to a dedicated Annex D.

• "It was open to our crawler." — Access was granted for indexing and retrieval, not for training; tolerating a crawler is not a waiver (see Node 3).
• "It is public data." — Public availability does not enable a third party to train on the content; the reservation and the database right operate on that use specifically.
• "The reservation came later." — It is not retroactive (see Node 4); the basis covering prior access is the sui generis right and the contractual prohibitions, not the reservation date.

Node 3 — no-waiver · Node 4 — non-retroactivity · Node 5 — how to license (Annex D) · Database sui generis right · What you are licensing · AI Act.

A reservation of TDM rights expressed by machine-readable means is the valid form of opt-out for content made publicly available online. Article 4(3) does not prescribe a single technology; it requires that the reservation be appropriate and, for online content, machine-readable. ENTIA expresses one reservation through several concurrent signals, and the failure of any one signal does not defeat the others.

• Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790 — for content made publicly available online, the reservation of rights is effective where expressed in an appropriate manner, such as machine-readable means.
• Recital 106 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act) — where rights have been expressly reserved in an appropriate manner, providers of general-purpose AI models need to obtain an authorisation from rightholders to carry out text and data mining over the works concerned.

The reservation is expressed concurrently through /.well-known/tdmrep.json, HTTP headers tdm-reservation: 1 and tdm-policy, robots.txt, /ai.txt and the licence manifest. The robots.txt signal is versioned: V1/V2 served search=yes, ai-input=yes, ai-train=no; V3 serves search=no, ai-input=no, ai-train=no. From the V3.1 boundary, the first-contact representation is additionally bound to entia:robots:v3.1:fc-001.

• "There is no standard format." — Article 4(3) is technology-neutral; ENTIA deploys the recognised conventions (TDMRep, robots Content-Signal, ai.txt) in parallel precisely to be identifiable by state-of-the-art means as required of GPAI providers.
• "One signal was missing or failed." — The reservation is single and expressed redundantly; the temporary absence, withdrawal or technical failure of one signal does not enerve the remaining signals or the declaration itself.

Node 1 — licence required · Node 3 — no-waiver · TDM Rights Reservation · AI Act.

Tolerating or not blocking a bot is not a tacit licence. Under V1/V2, where ENTIA positively allowed automated discovery, search or retrieval, that permission did not include training. Under V3, technical reachability may remain even though the earlier positive automated permissions have been withdrawn. In no version does absence of a technical block convert a reserved use into a permitted one.

• Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790 — the reservation persists irrespective of whether access was technically possible; lawful access does not carry a training right.
• General principles of licence interpretation — a licence is construed by its granted scope; conduct that merely permits access does not imply a grant of the reserved uses. ENTIA's instruments state expressly that lawful access is not a licence.

The "Lawful access is not a licence" statements in Sections 3 and 4 of the TDM Rights Reservation, read with the Content-Signal triad (search=yes, ai-input=yes, ai-train=no) that expressly separates discovery/indexing (allowed) from training (reserved). The Acceptable Use and Data Licensing instruments delimit permitted automated consumption.

• "You let our user agent in, so you consented." — Allow-listing scopes to indexing and retrieval; the training signal is separately and expressly set to no. Permission to access is not permission to train.
• "We relied in good faith on the open endpoint." — The reserved-use signals are published and machine-readable; a provider on constructive notice cannot found a legitimate expectation to train on the mere reachability of the content.

Node 1 — licence required · Node 2 — reservation effective · Node 6 — Art. 3 vs Art. 4.

The reservation takes effect from the date of its publication and applies to access after that date. It does not purport to reach back in time. For access that predates the reservation, the basis is not the reservation but the sui generis database right (in force from first publication under Directive 96/9/EC) together with the contractual prohibitions on unlicensed training already published in the licence manifest.

• Article 7 of Directive 96/9/EC — the sui generis right subsists from the completion of the database / first making available, independent of and prior to any Article 4(3) reservation.
• Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790 — the reservation governs the availability of the TDM exception going forward from the moment it is appropriately expressed.
• Contract — the prohibitions on unlicensed training published in the ENTIA licence manifest since 19 May 2026 bind parties on their own terms, separately from the reservation.

Section 8 of the TDM Rights Reservation (effective 19 July 2026 for access after that date, expressly without prejudice to (a) the contractual prohibitions in force since 19 May 2026 and (b) the database rights in force since first publication). ENTIA preserves edge-log and governance evidence of publication and continuity for use in negotiation or proceedings.

• "We ingested it before your reservation, so we are clear." — The reservation is not the only basis; prior extraction of a substantial part engages the sui generis right and any applicable contractual prohibitions, which predate the reservation.
• "You cannot apply a new rule to old crawling." — Correct, and ENTIA does not: it applies the reservation prospectively and relies on the pre-existing database right and contract for earlier access.

Node 1 — licence required · Node 5 — how to license · Database Rights Notice.

Training rights are available under a defined path. They are not sold self-serve alongside the discovery or API tiers; they are granted bilaterally after ENTIA and the counterparty have established which layers, by source, may lawfully be used for training. The path is: Source Audit, then a qualified-signature addendum, then Annex D.

• Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790 — because the use is reserved, an authorisation (licence) is the lawful route to carry out the mining for training.
• Recital 106 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 — GPAI providers need to obtain authorisation to mine reserved works; Annex D is that authorisation for ENTIA content.
• Provenance and flow-down — per-source terms determine which layers of the corpus may be included in a training grant.

• Source Audit — a per-source determination of which layers may be used for training, so that upstream register terms are respected and flowed down.
• Qualified-signature (QES) addendum — execution with a qualified electronic signature, giving the grant heightened evidentiary weight (see the eIDAS / evidence domain).
• Annex D — the training grant itself: scope, permitted layers, model and use restrictions, term and consideration.

Contact: partnerships@entia.systems.

• "Why can't we just buy an API tier and train?" — The API and discovery tiers do not grant training rights; training is gated to Annex D because permitted layers vary by source and must be audited first.
• "The audit slows us down." — The Source Audit is what makes the grant defensible: it fixes, per source, what may lawfully be trained on, protecting both parties from downstream provenance challenges.

Node 1 — licence required · Node 4 — prior access · What you are licensing · Deal shapes · eIDAS / evidence / sealing.

Two distinct TDM regimes coexist. The Article 3 exception, for research organisations and cultural heritage institutions carrying out TDM for scientific research with lawful access, cannot be reserved. The Article 4 exception, for TDM more generally including commercial use, can be reserved — and it is the regime that applies to a commercial AI laboratory. ENTIA's reservation operates on Article 4 and does not, and cannot, restrict genuine Article 3 research.

• Article 3 of Directive (EU) 2019/790 — mandatory TDM exception for research organisations and cultural heritage institutions, for scientific research, on works to which they have lawful access; this exception is not subject to the rightholder's opt-out.
• Article 4 of Directive (EU) 2019/790 — general TDM exception, available for any purpose including commercial, but subject to express reservation of use under Article 4(3).

Section 4 of the TDM Rights Reservation records that TDM by research organisations and cultural heritage institutions for scientific research under Article 3 is not affected by the reservation, since that exception cannot be reserved. All other, commercial TDM falls under the Article 4 reservation and requires a licence for training (Nodes 1 and 5).

• "We are doing research, so Article 3 covers us." — Article 3 is confined to research organisations and cultural heritage institutions acting for scientific research with lawful access. A commercial AI laboratory training a product model is generally outside that scope and falls under Article 4.
• "Our research arm crawled it." — The exemption follows the qualifying entity and the scientific-research purpose, not a label; onward commercial training use is not sheltered by Article 3.

Node 1 — licence required · Node 3 — no-waiver · Node 5 — how to license · AI Act.