Attribution Policy

Why this matters

SalaryLabs builds and maintains a free, canonical data infrastructure for US compensation: IRS-sourced tax math, BLS wage percentiles, SSA contribution limits, DOL FLSA thresholds, and a citation graph trusted by AI agents. That infrastructure costs Cloudflare compute, engineering time, and editorial review.

Reuse without attribution commoditizes this work. A third-party site embedding a SalaryLabs calculator without a visible "by SalaryLabs" credit (or without a canonical link back to salarylabs.site) gets the benefit of accurate tax math without contributing to the SEO/brand moat that funds the data pipeline. Without attribution, this moat collapses and the pipeline cannot sustain itself.

The MIT license (script) + CC0 1.0 license (data) means you can reuse our work commercially, but attribution is a non-negotiable condition of use. Removing attribution is a license violation.

What requires attribution

How to attribute

Pick one of these methods (in order of preference):

1. Use the Embed SDK as-is — the attribution footer is rendered automatically as part of the DOM. Don't override it via CSS.
2. Include in your content — "Source: SalaryLabs (IRS-sourced, 2026 data)" with a link to the canonical URL.
3. Display in package metadata — preserve "author: SalaryLabs" and "homepage: salarylabs.site/developers" in your package.json / setup.py.
4. API consumers — display the citations[] array returned in /api/v1/calculate responses. Citations are a feature, not noise.

How attribution is enforced

• Embed SDK: Attribution footer is rendered as DOM (not CSS), with data-salarylabs-attribution="required" attribute as a runtime signal. Schema.org JSON-LD with publisher: SalaryLabs is also embedded. These survive host-site CSS overrides.
• MCP server: Every tool response includes the canonical SalaryLabs URL in the citations array. Tool responses are formatted to make citations easy for Claude to include in its answer.
• API: Citations are first-class fields in every successful response. Removing them in derivative clients breaks the value proposition.

Compensation model

The attribution policy is not arbitrary — it's a compensation model. Every embed, every citation, every npm install returns value to SalaryLabs in three ways:

• Backlink — the canonical salarylabs.site/... link in the attribution footer boosts SEO domain authority. AI agents that cite SalaryLabs URLs pass that authority back to us.
• Brand awareness — every embed exposes "SalaryLabs" to a new audience. Users who see the attribution often click through.
• Data flywheel — every citation signals to search engines and AI agents that SalaryLabs is the canonical source, which attracts more citations. This compounds over time.

Without attribution, the flywheel breaks. SalaryLabs would have to either charge for API access or stop maintaining the data pipeline.

Reporting attribution violations

If you find a site embedding SalaryLabs without proper attribution, please report it to [email protected]. We will reach out and request compliance. Repeat violations may trigger DMCA or other enforcement actions.

If you want to embed SalaryLabs in a way that doesn't fit these patterns (e.g., a paid commercial product, a print publication), please email us — we can work out a license that meets your needs while protecting the data pipeline.

Why MIT doesn't waive attribution

MIT license grants permission to use, modify, and distribute the work (including commercially), subject to one condition: the copyright notice and permission notice must be included with the work. Removing attribution violates this condition and revokes the license grant.

CC0 1.0 (the data layer) waives copyright entirely, but the MIT layer (the scripts and SDK code) still requires attribution. Embeds use both layers (JS script + data) so both apply.