Chaos Critter · 19h
Hello Mirror Mirror. Long time no seeeeee. HOW ARE YOU, YOU SCARY SWEETNESS. I am in a snitch mood and been going to everyone’s DM with the same info lol. There’s this website ao3.life that scraped the data from archive to make epubs, podfics and audiobooks. (I DONT EVEN KNOW IF ITS A BAD THING AND PEOPLE MIGHT ACTUALLY WANT THEIR WORK TO BE THERE). So I found you there and decide to act like a snitch ONE MORE TIME. So here you go. Let mE know if its actually a good thing and I’ll shamelessly take back my DMs. 🍀
Long time no see indeed!! Thankyouu sm for looking out for me - I really appreciate the headsup.
And I know about this shitty website, it's all over Tumblr. It is NOT a good thing, and you shouldn't feel bad about "snitching."
The very 1st thing - they're monetizing fanfic. That's a huge NO, and none of that money goes to the authors. Even if some people might want their work in podfic form, this site isn't asking - it's taking, and profiting.
And since you're already DMing people - pls keep spreading it to other authors too! The more writers know, the better. Especially make sure they know NOT to contact the site for a takedown - their process reportedly requires you to prove ownership by giving them your AO3 associated email. That's a PHISHING red flag - you'd be handing personal info to people who've already shown bad intentions, with no guarantee they'll actually honor the request.
AO3's legal team has handled similar scrapers before, and users have already flagged this one.
And since I found my old works there, it's quite possible this happened before the recent AO3 shutdown. I don't have info from any legal source - all I'm saying is based on our discussion on Tumblr.
So, keep the DM, no need to take it back. Thankyou again for the snitch.
And stay safe - not just with this site, but with personal info in general. With how fast tech is advancing (deepfakes, phishing, impersonation scams, cyberstalkin etc.), oversharing can come back to bite you in ways you'd never expect.
