A new website, AO3.life, has emerged during the Archive of Our Own's (AO3) significant outage, attempting to capitalize on users' lack of access to fanfiction. The site claims to offer fanfics as audiobooks, with a purported revenue split of 91% for authors and 9% for the site. However, security experts and fan community members are warning that this is an elaborate phishing and doxxing scheme.
The fraudulent site appears to have scraped cached versions of the fanfiction repository, including works that have since been deleted or made private. Accessing AO3.life or engaging with its claims is strongly discouraged.
The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), the non-profit parent organization of AO3, is aware of the situation and is actively working to have the scam website taken down. A moderator on the AO3 subreddit shared a message from the OTW stating that legal actions are underway, though they acknowledge that the legal process is significantly slower than online developments. Users have been advised to remain patient as the OTW pursues resolution.