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Writers Furious When Fanfiction Site Won’t Ban AI-Generated Work: Why AO3 Allows It

AO3 does not ban AI-generated fanfiction. OTW says a ban cannot be enforced without reliable AI detection, and it treats scraping as a separate problem.
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Archive of Our Own (AO3), the fanfiction archive run by the nonprofit Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), does not prohibit AI-generated fanworks. OTW’s stated reasons are that such works fall within its mission to preserve fan creativity, and that a ban cannot be enforced because there is no reliable way to tell when AI was used. That position angered writers in 2023, and OTW restated it in 2025.

What triggered the 2023 backlash

In May 2023, Futurism’s Sharon Adarlo reported that writers threatened to remove their stories from AO3 after OTW publicized an interview excerpt featuring Betsy Rosenblatt, then chair of OTW’s legal committee and a law professor at the University of Tulsa. In the excerpt, Rosenblatt said she was excited that AIs were reading fanfiction. Writers who objected were worried about AI companies training models on fan-written work, and some also objected to the archive hosting generated fanworks at all.

Those are two different objections. The first concerns training: fan writers did not want their stories feeding datasets. The second concerns hosting: whether a platform built for human fan writing should carry text produced by a generator. The individual reactions quoted in the Futurism report are those users’ views and do not amount to a poll of writers.

What OTW said in response

OTW deleted the interview excerpt and apologized. It then published a post describing technical measures to hinder large-scale scraping. The same post said AO3’s Terms of Service did not prohibit AI-generated fanfiction and that such works were within OTW’s preservation mission. As quoted by Futurism, the organization wrote:

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“If fans are using AI to generate fanworks, then our current position is that this is also a type of work that is within our mandate to preserve.”

The 2025 position and why OTW says a ban will not work

In answers published with the minutes of its April 26, 2025 board meeting, OTW said there were “no plans to change AO3’s rules on using AI to create works.” Its reasoning rests on enforcement rather than on a view that generated work is acceptable in every case:

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  • AI use cannot be reliably detected.
  • Available detectors produce false positives, and those errors fall disproportionately on writers who speak English as a second language, less experienced writers, and neurodivergent writers.
  • OTW says it will not consider a policy it cannot reasonably and fairly implement.

The central sentence in the answer reads: “Until such time as there is a reliable way to detect AI usage, it is not possible to enforce a ban against AI.” The full answers are in OTW’s Board Meeting Minutes: 26 April 2025, published May 28, 2025.

Scraping is a separate question

Allowing AI-generated stories on AO3 is not the same as allowing AI companies to take works from it. In the same board-meeting answers, OTW said it had added a Cloudflare tool to prevent AI scraping and other bots. It acknowledged that the tool is not perfect and that stronger solutions could significantly affect some users, especially people on older devices.

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The minutes also note that most scrapers are not logged in and therefore cannot view locked works. Locking a work significantly reduces the chance of scraping but does not eliminate it. Readers should treat these as the protections OTW describes, with stated limits, rather than as a guarantee.

The sources establish AO3’s posting policy and its scraping measures. They do not establish a broader permission for AI companies to use hosted works, and the posting policy does not mean AO3 endorses scraping.

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How another fanfiction community handles it

The Silmarillion Writers’ Guild takes the opposite posting position. Its published AI policy prohibits wholly or partially AI-generated fanworks and sets out removal and a strike for violations. The Guild also says AI-detection software does not reliably identify generated works, and that its moderators will not use such software to decide removals.

The two communities chose different rules but face the same verification problem. The Guild is one documented example and should not be read as representative of all fanfiction sites.

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Question AO3 (OTW) Silmarillion Writers’ Guild
Written rule for AI-generated works Allowed under the Terms of Service, according to OTW’s 2023 post and 2025 board-meeting answers Wholly or partially AI-generated fanworks prohibited
Definition of what counts as AI Not stated in the OTW statements cited here Not stated in the Guild policy page cited here
Enforcement No ban is enforced; OTW says a ban cannot be enforced without reliable detection Removal and a strike for violations
Detection software Not used as a basis for a ban; OTW says available detectors produce false positives Not reliable; moderators will not use it to decide removals
Scraping protections Cloudflare bot tool, not perfect; locking reduces but does not eliminate scraping (April 2025 minutes) Not stated in the Guild policy page cited here

What to check before relying on this

  • The most recent official OTW statement cited here is from its April 2025 board meeting. Policies can change after a statement like this, so check AO3’s current Terms of Service before treating the position as settled.
  • Look for later OTW board minutes or announcements, which would show whether the position on AI-generated works or the scraping measures have changed.
  • Community rules for other fanfiction sites differ. Check each site’s own terms before posting there.

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