A startup has launched the first AI knowledge clearinghouse that pays experts royalties for AI use of their work. Professional Language Models, Inc., based in Durham, North Carolina, announced the launch of the PLM Network and the Decentralized Intelligence Economy, a system that registers expert knowledge as owned digital property and routes royalty payments to creators whenever that knowledge is accessed by an AI system. The company describes the model as the first performance rights organization for artificial intelligence, drawing a direct parallel to BMI and ASCAP. Under the model, when a frontier AI system queries knowledge registered on the PLM Network, a royalty event is recorded and a micropayment is issued to the expert who created it. The company's revenue model distributes 70 percent of each transaction to the knowledge creator, 20 percent to the infrastructure node provider, and 10 percent to the platform, settled in USDC micropayments and traditional payment rails. The announcement follows a $1.5 billion settlement against Anthropic in 2025 as federal courts prepare to issue rulings on AI and copyright.