Every month in OTW Signal we’ll take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including legal, technology, academic, fannish history, and preservation issues that are important for fandom, fan culture or transformative works.
In the News
The OTW was one of 38 groups and organizations which contacted the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law to express their support for the protections that Section 230 offers to hosts of user-generated content online. Chair Betsy Rosenblatt explained:
Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act is the law that makes it possible for websites like the AO3 that host user-generated content to exist. Section 230 protects websites from being liable for user-posted material, and allows websites to make and enforce their own rules about what kind of content they host (as the AO3 does with its Terms of Service) without having to monitor everything that happens on the website. The OTW continues to watch U.S. lawmakers and courts closely and will continue to oppose efforts to make it harder for people to post content online or otherwise threaten the survival of small websites.
[An element of this newsletter has been removed; please see our update post of 12 May 2023 for more information.]
OTW Tips
Contributing to Fanlore is now easier than ever. Last year Fanlore gained a new visual editor and anyone can give it a try! As their help page says: “The number one rule of wiki editing is to be bold. Dive in and make changes. Other people can correct mistakes later, so have confidence, and give it a try! There are all kinds of editing conventions and philosophies governing the editing of wiki pages, but the “be bold” rule is the most important!
In general try to write clearly and concisely and be sure you always aim to improve the wiki with your edits. A valuable edit might contribute whole pages of information, or it might simply fix a typo.”
We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or news story you think we should know about, send us a link. We are looking for content in all languages! Submitting a link doesn’t guarantee that it will be included in an OTW post, and inclusion of a link doesn’t mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.
I’m beyond appalled by your legal chair’s statement. The writing community as a whole —both published authors and fanfic authors alike— is united on its against AI stance. No, I do not think AI is exciting when it comes to the arts. At best it’ll lead to further devaluation of artistic work, at worst it’ll attempt to substitute actual artists altogether. This is shameful and frankly embarrassing, the polar opposite of what writers everywhere want. No, I do not want my works to be used to train AI. And no, I don’t think this would lead to more “inclusivity”. The only challenge I’ll raise to is trying to get a clarification from you on what’s OTW’s official stance on the subject and what is it doing to protect its users (throwing them under the bus, looks like).
I thought the OTW would be the one organisation I could trust blindly to protect the interests of its userbase against AI, especially regarding works stored on the archive. I guess I was wrong.
This a horrifically terrible idea. I truly hope that you reconsider this. Please, please think of the writers.
“Will fans will take up this challenge?” I have supported AO3 through thick and thin. I have been a member and contributed for over a decade. If our fics are used by companies monetizing AI, I will leave the platform. Let them write their own materials to train their bots.
Exactly. If AO3 and OTW allow/promote AI scraping, I will remove my works, cease posting new ones, cease reading/accessing the site altogether, and actively discourage others from utilizing it. I’m pretty sure a good majority of writers will feel the same. AO3 is touted as a safe space from many of the abuses writers have experienced on other public archive sites. If that will no longer be the case, users will leave in droves.
Also, I feel like we need to highlight the notice at the bottom of this site: “The OTW is a fan-run nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of fanworks. We’re sustained entirely by donations from our users.” Also, 2023 board elections are coming up.
1. OTW is a fan-run non-profit. Why are they considering allowing this to happen without, at the very least, a survey of the fans/users to see if they even want to allow this to happen?
2. OTW is sustained by donations. If they start allowing this, donations are going to dry up to probably less than a trickle. Good luck getting four times the goal within the first twenty-four hours.
3. The entire board can get replaced if they make a big enough mistake, and I believe allowing AI to train with AO3 content will most likely be considered by members to be that sort of mistake.
“Will fans take up this challenge” is such a despicable way to try and make creators feel bad for not playing with your pet favorite technology fad that has proven time and time again on social media it is used to steal the hard work of creatives.
Like. Just be honest and say you want money and free commodities.
There is no challenge but the one AO3 will find itself having to face if something as AI training becomes the norm in the platform. It’s such a callous disregard for the rights of the majority of writers who post and share their creativity in the archive to suddenly be forced to turn into content farms which take absolutely no consideration of the original authorship of these works. Did the archive not see an increase of locked works months ago when AI scrapping became a thing on the shite? How come this suddenly becomes something to be desired?
What in the actual goddam hell is wrong with you to even suggest we would want AI access or involvement in anything on AO3. If this is an archive of our own—our being the damn users—then maybe AI, who is not a user nor a donor, nor a member of the OTW, should not be getting a seat at the table? I am genuinely horrified. How dare you.
Hey, this is fucking terrible. As a writer, an artist, and a former donator to the Archive, I don’t consent to my works being scraped for corporations to plagiarize and profit off, and I imagine a huge amount of Ao3’s userbase will feel the same way. There’s a difference between transformative works and AI plagiarism. If this goes ahead, I’ll be deleting all my works from the Archive and encouraging as many others to do the same as possible. Fuck AI, whatever happened to basic human consideration and ethics?
This is awful. AO3 is an archive site, for works written by ARTISTS. PEOPLE. It’s no place for training AI on works by people who aren’t consenting to it. What about works written by authors who are now deceased? Reconsider it. What you’ll actually get is people scrubbing their works off the website and not posting there again.
This is a terrible take and I’m really concerned about what it means for fandom and the fanworks hosted on AO3.
I don’t want my fanworks used to educate AI. Ever.
This is an exceptionally disappointing stance to have in regards to the way that AI interacts with creative works. The idea of masking the theft of other people’s hard work and effort as some kind of morally neutral transmutation into “data” is disingenuous as well as patently incorrect. It is also incredibly disconnected with the community of creators that the OTW is supposed to represent.
As it currently stands AI “learning” on artistic models is theft, and it is patently unethical. I don’t know if there’s ever going to be a way for AI of this nature to not be unethical. Whatever arguments can be made for the utility of AI stand in a similar box as arguments for automation; where the technology can replace a burden on humanity, then perhaps it can be argued to be worthwhile. When the technology replaces human work and human effort to the detriment of those people, then the technology is a harmful tool for capital to benefit itself.
AI writing and art tools are currently being used INSTEAD of artists, INSTEAD of the real human creative minds required for art.
The legal chair’s statement, while likely legally correct, is appalling, and frankly ghoulish. It represents a lack of understanding about the way that these systems currently operate and how they negatively affect creators. I hope this stance is reevaluated and given far more consideration, considering the response that the community seems to be having.
Otherwise, we’re at risk of simply losing millions of words of creative work as people pull them from the archives, and we return to not sharing our with people who would allow and encourage it to be scrubbed for a predictive text machine to learn how to spit out something with a bare resemblance of meaning.
Do some reflection.
What a terrible idea. Extremely disappointing. Consistently fans have been against AI getting access to their written works, some even locking their accounts to prevent scraping. Now you turn around and give us this?
Going forward with this idea will only irreparably harm the trust the community has in AO3. Many will easily delete their works and leave the Archive if this goes forward. The fact that works from the deceased will not be protected, as they cannot consent to this, is also a horrible thought. AO3 is for human artists and their work, and we are NOT excited about the possibility of AI. Maybe your Legal Chair is curious, but the rest of us aren’t.
If this proceeds, it would pain me to do so, but I’d have to delete all my works from the site. Do better.
This AI stance is deeply fucking disappointing and, no, fanwriters will not take up this challenge. None of us want our work scraped so a massive corporate entity can extrude product for sale. “For diversity and inclusion!” Be fucking real. That this is being advanced as an argument *in favor* of AI is deeply unserious and, frankly, deeply concerning. I strongly suggest your *Legal Chair* either adjust their opinion in accord with the *vast majority of OTW members and supporters* or else *resign their position.*
This is so incredibly disgusting. We are in the middle of writers strikes and one of the reasons is AI usage and this is the stance you’ve chosen to take? I don’t want my fics used to educate AI, it feels like a violation of everything I stand for as a creator. I can’t imagine the number of people who will pull their works from the sight because of this. There’s no care for the people who use AO3 and have supported it through everything. This needs to be reevaluated.
This is very disappointing. AI learns by stealing. Allowing AI to use the works that the users of this site produce is horrendous. The works on this site are done with love and compassion, whereas AI just steals and copies. If this is AO3’s official stance on the matter then it is incredibly disappointing and is a big indication that the Board is losing touch with its user base.
I DO NOT consent to my fanfics being used to train AI. I will never be okay with it with a machine taking my hard work and it being used by corporations for money making purposes (because that’s what it will be used for)
going on my 5th year of otw support and membership and have nearly 3M words published to ao3 and this right here? this is what would make me drop my support and remove all my fics from the archive…the idea that there is not only support from otw for AI-generated content but that there is desire to use fic possibly without consent (unclear on whether authors are able to opt out) for training is just…abhorrent and frankly the polar opposite of what i believed that otw and ao3 stood for. this is actively jarring and i will be researching alternative ways to host and share my fics. i hope otw reconsiders.
Absolutely not, AI is a terrible and I refuse to have anything to do with it.
It is more than a little concerning to see how flippantly Ms Rosenblatt seems to speak on the subject of AI scraping fanworks, with little to no consideration of the experience of the writers of AO3. Yes, most writers write for the love of writing, but a not insignificant part of the motivation for many is also the sharing with and the response from fellow fans. But if that engagement goes down because either everything is overrun with AI-produced pieces, or people are preferring to have AI create them pieces instead of visiting the site, then that motivation for many will take a hit. Additionally, there is the fact that most writers, including myself, are very unhappy with the idea that a machine would be allowed to scrape our work without our knowledge or permission and then process it and regurgitate on the command of some person writing a prompt into a textbox.
This is deeply disheartening to hear from an organisation so many of us have always looked to and trusted to protect our interests; built by our own, as you say. We are on the whole as a community not excited about AI, we’re unhappy, frightened, angry – we know, because it is already happening (in fan circles and professional writing circles, such as some of the driving force behind the current WGA strike), that AI is being pushed to replace creative human spirit. We have not been shy about voicing these feelings, and to hear someone speaking for the OTW speak like this is an unpleasant, painful shock.
AI training and the works AI produces are deeply unethical in their current incarnations, and that is a feature not a bug. And if it’s so important that they train their machines meant to replace us with broader, ‘more inclusive’ datasets? Perhaps they should pay for writers for that purpose, and not steal their fuel from us. It is not our responsibility (as writers or as fannish community) to contribute to that, much less without any control or consent over our own works being gutted and fed into the mill.
I do not want my works being crunched for AI datasets, in any sense, ever, and I vehemently do not want the option for my consent stolen from me along with my work; being told it’s exciting and I should support this new tool does not make me feel anything other than sick and disappointed.
This statement is incredibly worrysome. I don’t want my stories to be used as fodder to “train” an AI. AO3 is our archive, not an archive for an AI to use it as it wishes.
Here to express my disappointment with this stance. Absolutely terrible. What the hell is wrong with you that you would think allowing big tech companies to harvest and steal data should be condoned for ANY REASON.
The people funding the theft of data do not care about inclusivity, they care about getting as big a data set as possible. They don’t care where that data comes from as long as it makes their word calculators seem more competent at ganarating a sentence so they can sell it as a solution for problems that do not exists and that it cannot fix.
Creators, artists and writers, are being taken advantage of, being stolen from, and having their work and their lives devalued by billionaires who only care about the price of their stocks. What the hell is going on with you. You are supposed to be protecting us, do that.