#ao3 scrape

[draconicsparkle]

So due to the recent ao3 scrape that happened, I wanted to make a post to express my thoughts on AI art and writing.

I do NOT support AI creations.

It is theft, plain and simple. Stealing other people’s creations that they worked hard on and receiving no credit for the involvement in the model training is terrible and it needs to stop. It isn’t true art at all. And to those who claim that they worked hard on their ai art, that is blatantly false. No personal effort was put in. They essentially just commissioned a machine to make their ideas into art. There’s no respect for the progress of making it, which I personally believe is essential.

I do understand that it’s frustrating when you have ideas that you want put into form, but have no artistic ability. I can’t draw at all. But what do I do to solve this issue? Commission ACTUAL people when I have the funds.

The art community, both those who do drawings and those who write, we all need to support each other and build each other up. There’s so much potential in people, and it’s always special to see people blossom. To inspire each other and others who are just starting.

We can work together to make something more and special. We can do it.

[five-rivers]

I don't want my works to be on sketchy AI training websites, but I also don't want sketchy AI training websites to have my real human name and contact information, which is generally required for DMCA notices. You see my problem.

[omsrandom]

50 of my 52 stories on AO3 were scraped without my permission to be used as a training set for AI.

50

of 52.

Of those were original works, one of which was a character study for my book characters that a follower wanted to read.

I've filed my takedown request, but there is a chance it may not be removed. If it is not removed, I will retire from writing indefinitely, as I do not want this to become the norm and have my writing be fed to AI to create endless slop.

[smittenroses]

Locked fics are not safe

Thank you to the lovely people that are helping others go through the dataset and figure out if their fics were scraped or not. However, locking our fics now or before hasn't helped;

locked fics were also scraped.

I haven't locked any of my own fics but I have seen others who either had a lot of locked fics or had entirely locked fics on the archive come forward and mention that the dataset also included them.

This means that the scraper had an account.

I'm so sorry for everyone involved (including myself) but at this point locking our fics does nothing if we know they also had an account. It only means that our fics are reaching a smaller audience than before.

To my own audience, my works will still be available to read with or without an account, I'm not going to let them scare me into hiding.

[honestlydarkprincess]

whoever scraped ao3 i hope u fall into a pile of legos

[yourbookcouldbegayer]

PSA: Your AO3 work might have been scraped for a GenAI dataset

(PLEASE NOTE: At this time, access to the dataset has been disabled. You can file a DMCA takedown request if your work is included in the scraped data to campaign for full deletion, but at this time it is considered unnecessary.)

This is intended as a general notification for all the writers following this blog who post on AO3.

Approximately 12.6 million public works were scraped from AO3 and several other published-work sites, including PaperDemon, which has regular updates on the situation as well as resources. Here is the link to their updates.

Affected AO3 users are those whose work IDs were public-facing (that is to say, not locked to registered AO3 users only), and whose work IDs are between 1 and 63,200,000.

Your work ID is the number in your work's site URL, like so:

This work has an ID only in the 61-million range, and so was scraped for the dataset.

If you wish to lock your works to be visible to logged-in users only, you can do so through Works > Edit Works > All > Edit > Only show to registered users.

[unfinishedmural]

Soooo, apparently, someone by the name of "nyuuzyou" recently scraped tons of fanfics off of AO3 and posted them to various generative ai database sites. It seems like fics which were only viewable by people with profiles were safe, so a bunch of people are locking their accounts. I don't know if I'll be locking mine yet, but if you've been using AO3 as a guest, you may want to sign up soon. If you do have an account, and your fics were victims of the scrape, you might be able to file a copyright claim. This reddit post seems to have most of the information, including what works were scraped and where the data was posted.

Or, if you don't want to read all that, here's the user's profile on Hugging Face (one of the ai database websites)

[poltergeist-punk]

in the wake of ao3 getting data scraped and the new weird purist mindset in fandom that’s making people harass creators, right now is a great time to remember;

- readers, make an ao3 account to look at fics, it’s free, encourages artist to privatize their work to protect it without fear of losing their follower base.

- comment! interact! if you liked something specific in the fic don’t be shy to tell the author, building and strengthening fandom community will help the authors and other creators.

- authors, lock your fics, I know it’s scary and it’s ultimately up to you what you think is right but locking fics discourages data scrapers, and if they do get the gall to make an account to steal fics it helps ao3 track data scrapers more efficiently.

- fandom, do not be afraid, i know its hard right now but ao3 is an amazing resource as an archive as well as an accessible library of amazing fan works and others. the community poured time effort and money into ao3, it’d be a shame if it had to be shut down over something petty as this, working together is how we will make ao3 a safer and stronger place for creatives.

- lastly dear authors, i know it’s the worst when your hard work is scraped and fed into something as soulless as an ai. two years ago my whole profile on instagram was scraped for an ai by one of my close online friends, that is the main reason why i completely transferred to tumblr. it hurts but do not give up, you have amazing creative souls, and despite everyone calling fanfiction cringe, authors like you breathe life into fandom and franchises altogether.

it is all up to you if you want to keep creating, but just know that us readers will miss you and we understand if it’s too much.

[heyftinally]

A podcast I listen to just posed the question of "will the Ao3 fic scrape result in people accidentally generating work emails full of smut due to the nature of Ao3 content?" and honestly I think that would be both incredibly hilarious and completely deserved.

[nevadancitizen]

i am so pissed, SO PISSED that YET ANOTHER person has come along and scraped ao3 for their generative ai bullshit. every -- not overstating this -- EVERY public work has been processed for HuggingFace and its derivatives. people i know are restricting their works to registered users only and i recommend you do the same so that only registered users can access them. paperdemon, (another site that got scraped -- bless their hearts), has taken up the responsibility of keeping track of the datasets borne of the stolen content. two of the datasets (artgram and itaku) have been deleted, but the others (ao3, artfol, character hub, paintberri, paperdemon art, paperdemon writing) are only temporarily disabled due to the owners of the sites filing a DMCA.

i'm so fucking angry despite the fact that the ao3 people are already in the process of trying to remove it. they stole the work of people i respect, people i take inspiration from, and even MY work. i can't believe it. i have FAR more respect for the shit i took this morning than i ever will for those parasitic lobotomites. but hey -- on the bright side, ziff davis (parent company of IGN, PCMag, Mashable) is suing OpenAI. hopefully when their pockets take a hit, ai jagoffs get the message and stop scraping and let generative ai die

[i-suc-at-art]

JUST FYI GUYS

Due to the scraping of Ao3 I will be privating all my works (if you have an ao3 account you can still read them)

[dokidango]

Regarding the ao3 AI scrape

[the hell clock app]

[gwenie-creates]

So I've just heard about the ao3 AI scrape and was wondering if anyone had some advice since I just made my account and am a new user.

Should I archieve lock my works to prevent AI from stealing my work or should I just leave it be?

I don't want to archieve lock my works because I don't want to limit people who don't have an account from being able to read my works but I don't want my works to be used to train AI.

I would still be posting my fic on here if I did archieve lock my work so people without accounts who read my work could continue to read it on here.

Help/thoughts are appreciated <3

[winterinhimring]

To all my fanfic-reading followers: I'm really sorry, but I have just finished archive-locking all my fics. Thanks to https://occasionalklance.tumblr.com/, who is being a saint and helping people find out which fics got scraped, I now know that the latest AO3 data scrape got 93 of my 103 posted fics. My writing style is very distinctive and one of the things I'm most proud of about my stories, and the idea of it getting used by an AI without so much as a cursory request for permission has honestly left me a lot madder than I expected to be.

If you are one of my guest readers, I'm so sorry, but I really do recommend getting an account at this point, because I know a lot of authors are archive-locking their fics and you'll have way more to read that way. Also, I'll be able to see your kudos and recognise you, which makes me happy!

[cakes-are-great]

I just found out that all of my fucking ao3 fics were scraped to train a fucking ai. I had no clue until I saw a TikTok talking about it.

I did some digging, and if you want to check to see if your fics was scraped as well, if it has an ID number above 63 200 000, then you are safe. If it was locked or restricted, you’re most likely safe as well.

All of my works will be restricted for the time being, I know ao3 is filing a DMCA takedown for the person responsible but I don’t have much hope.

"Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made." - J. R. R. Tolkien

[zakalwe-the-ninth]

Oh hey, AI scraped 29 of my fics.

It only got the first two chapters of Fluid Dynamics though, so it completely missed Vimes finally getting railed by Vetinari. Totally amateurish.

Anyway, I considered archive locking them going forward but it seems that horse has already bolted, plus apparently lots of locked fics have also been scraped so that doesn't necessarily seem to help. And since I have a lot of lovely guest readers/commentors, I'm just going to wish very unpleasant things on the people who do this shit and carry on regardless.

(The tool to check is by the fantastic @ao3scrapesearch)