#rivde

[tinypandacakes]

Attn authors on AO3! Just learned about this on a writing discord I’m in and thought I’d share.

A new website, https://rivd.net/, has cropped up and has been shown to have stolen/scraped works from Ao3, which are being scraped and uploaded at a rather impressive speed.

At this time, it isn't clear if site owners have wised up and have started taking the fics down, as the site requires an account and also the current *justified outrage* at this has led to an apparent overload on the site's servers, meaning they've basically shut down the search and privatized their fanfiction category.

The best way to protect your work if it has not already been scraped is by locking it to all logged out users. It’s unfortunate as guest comments and kudos are so precious to us authors, but it will protect your works from being scraped.

Further information can be found in this Reddit thread and the below screenshots: https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/1dvyvqm/ao3_fics_being_uploaded_to_rivd_by_a_bot/

NOTE: DO NOT USE RIVD's DMCA TAKEDOWN FORM. You SHOULD NOT be required to provide your *government ID* to protect your intellectual property. This is borderline a phishing scam. RIVD is hosted by Cloudflare, who have a system for reporting abuse on sites which use their services which can be found at the following site: https://www.cloudflare.com/trust-hub/reporting-abuse/.

Thank you @punemy-spotted for compiling all this info and helping get the word out.

[lockandk3yfiction]

Report rivd for phishing here.

This site (rivd) reposts content without permission, asking for government ID, email, phone numbers, and other peronal information when reporting behavior that goes against their TOS.

This information should NOT be required and may prove harmful to those attempting to make a report.

[allemantheias]

Locking my works from now on.

With this Rivd(dot)net site scraping Ao3 with AI bots to post on their site, as if the Ao3 author did it themselves.

I've decided to lock all my works for registered users only. I'm sorry to who reads my CoD works on there without an account (please make one, the invite waiting time is not that bad anymore).

If you have your works open for unregistered users on Ao3, please check on the site mentioned if your works are on there, by searching for your Ao3 username. (Use an incognito tab if you prefer.)

Here is a little more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/1dvyvqm/ao3_fics_being_uploaded_to_rivd_by_a_bot/

[izfaish]

popping in from my tumblr break to say that due to the rivd situation, i've locked my fics on ao3 and squidgeworld.

you'll need to be logged into an account on each respective site to read my fics. a couple kn8 writers have done the same, plus writers from other fandoms. so if you were wondering whether to get an account, here's a sign ;;

[perverse-idyll]

i was reccing one of your fics today and i found out they are archive locked now! hope everything is ok <3

Squash! <3 Hello, and thanks for asking! I'm fine, for the usual values of hanging in there. I locked the fic because there's yet another bot-scraper systematically going through AO3 fandom by fandom and stealing all the content. The site is rivd.net, and apparently their "mission" focuses on movie based fandoms. They seem to think mass-uploading stolen work without permission is the way to do this. I haven't checked to see if anything of mine is on there, but for the time being it seems wiser to archive-lock, even though I'd really rather not.

But how are you? Are you doing okay?

[griseldagimpel]

RIVD Is Reposting Fan Fic Without Permission

rivd.net is reposting fan fic without permission.

You can contact them at rivd.takedown@gmail.com.

If your fic has been reposted there without your permission, send them an email telling them to tale it down.

There's an asinine template they'll want you to use, but it requires your legal name and address, so ignore that. Just send an email without that information.

The site is being difficult about takedowns, but if enough authors contact them and are persistent enough, they'll back down just to get us out of their hair.

Keep emailing them until they comply.

And please repost to help spread the word.

[popcornfairy28]

Hey I've locked my fics for now

Due to concerns about RIVD, an AI company scraping AO3 right now, I've decided to lock my fics for only registered users. Currently, I'm keeping up my podfics for guests though, since the majority of those are of other people's works and I don't think they can scrape those as easily??? That may change though. I also have a few of my fics on fanfiction.net, which I can't lock there so 🤷‍♀️ I guess you can read them there if you're a guest.

I will probably eventually unlock my fics when this blows over, which should be a matter of weeks. But in the meantime it is also pretty easy to get an AO3 account, so I would encourage you to get that if you haven't already. I love all my guest readers, so just hang in there.

[kermit-coded]

looks like that ai fanfic scraping site has been taken down, so i'll unlock my fics!

[iacha-cebrch]

Because of rivd many people are locking their fics on ao3 to registered accounts only, and to get an account you first need to have an invitation or wait for ao3 to send you one, and I don't know how much time you need to wait... I have many invites, so don't hesitate to ask one from me!

EDIT: I'll delete this post once all my codes are used

[ineffable-ezra]

I think rivd has been taken down!!! A win for fanfic writers!

[effervescentdragon]

so i just got an anon that is a bit too long and a bit weirdly worded (the genshin impact thing was truly unnecessary) but the point of it is that the site rivd.net is scraping ao3 stories and uploading them there. they have a bullshit response to an inquiry about it ("we only accept LEGIT requests for takedown, give us all your private data to take down your fics") so the reccommended course of action is - lock down your ao3 fics, friends. it's good practice in general. if anyone has more information about it, feel free to add to this post or tag me so i can reblog it, i didnt feel like exploring it in more depth.

[allemantheias]

Now rivd is gone..

I'm unlocking my works again now rivd is taken down. But when something like rivd and lorefm happens again, i will go back to locking temporarily (or permanent depending on the issue).

I still recommend everyone without an ao3 account to get into the invite queue now. Ao3 is honestly a great site to be part of.

[xxscarletlightxx]

Serious! Announcement!

I apologize but Gluttony's Embrace will be listed to only registered users on AO3 indefinitely due to the situation with Rivd.net see info here or here, with an AI bot stealing works and uploading in mass, though it saddens me. But, you can access it in whole on my Wattpad: @xXViolet_LightXx I know that the website has been shut down but I will be keeping it down for now unless we get better protection from Ao3. :(

[thatonedemonnamedlucifer]

just a quick heads up, my fics are temporarily archive-locked due to the whole RIVD situation (a.k.a, a site called rivd.net is stealing ao3 fics via ai). my works as far as i know do not appear to be compromised (the site itself appears to be down, so its hard to tell) but im not taking chances. they'll remain archive locked until either rivd is shut down entirely or until ao3 provides additional measures to protect our works.

[fanfictionlibrary01]

AO3 works being stolen and posted on rivd.net

What is happening, and what you can do. Check for edits with additions at the end of the post!

We've posted these infos in our Discord server, but want to make them accessible for more of you AO3 and fanfic folks out there. What is happening? A user called "Fanfic Books" on the site https://rivd.net is posting over a million of fanfics since May 18th (account creation time of that user), all of which seem to be stolen from AO3 users. You can check if your works were stolen by searching your AO3 username on that site. Reporting this on the site is tedious, and contains so much requested data and personal (sensitive) information about you that is just seems sketchy and like they want to grab your data to sell it off again. (See this for more on that.) That a virus called "rivd" apparently also exists does not help their case. Since the person posting the works is also listed as Moderator of the website, chances of successful reports are, by our estimation, very small to non-existant. (As you can look up here.) Creating an account on that site is also tedious - after trying it, the feedback was that a moderator needs to approve of my account creation request. How long that is supposed to take is not known. What can you do? We deduced - through admittedly rushed, because we felt like time was of the essence, and and sparce, checks - that people who have their works locked on AO3 have not been affected. (At all/as much is not to say, it's our best hope and theory rn.) We advised our server members to lock their AO3 works for the time being, as that currently seems like the only prevention method available. A great tutorial for how to lock all your AO3 works at once has been posted here. Kudos to this X/Twitter post that seemed to have started the spread of information, and others relaying the infos (like e.g. r/AO3 on Reddit). Edit (0,5h after initial post):

With permission of the author on AO3, here are screenshots from when I checked if their works (unlocked on AO3) were stolen. Searching for works of the FFL Discord server's admin, who has them locked on AO3, resulted no matches on the rivd site - hence the theory/recommendation that locking your AO3 works helps.

Edit 2 (4h after initial post):

There also seems to be a new occurrence that the fanfiction tab has been emptied/does not contain (publically displayed) fanfics anymore. What this means and if the fanfics are really taken down is unclear, but given that the anime fanfic category that once existed is seemingly completely gone, something is being done. Rumor is that a mass report of DMCA at Cloudflare caused this - it feels like a win either way!

Edit 3 (23h after initial post):

It seems like rivd.net is now completely down/inaccessible. See last attached screenshot in this post! No infos on what this means or what caused this are available atm, but like before, it feels like a small win!