Patreon stops asking AI bots not to scrape — and starts blocking them

Patreon, the membership platform for creators, is cracking down on AI scraping for training purposes. On Thursday, the company announced it is working with Internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare to directly block AI bots designed to train on creators’ work without consent. The stronger measures were needed because AI scraping has become more sophisticated since Patreon first introduced deterrents in 2023.

Patreon’s paywall has long protected much creator content from crawlers. However, recent discovery tools like the redesigned Home Feed and tweet-like Quips could expose more content to scrapers. These changes come as more online publishers and creators grapple with how AI uses their work to improve models.

Cloudflare now offers tools for publishers to restrict AI bots, including a marketplace where websites can charge for scraping, called Pay Per Crawl. Earlier this month, Cloudflare changed its policies so that mixed-use crawlers (those that both index and train) are blocked by default on ad-supported pages.

Patreon extends its existing Cloudflare partnership to use AI Crawl Control technology, updating its AI policies and enforcement tools. The key difference: instead of merely asking crawlers not to scrape via robots.txt, Patreon now actively blocks training bots. “Consent shouldn’t depend on whether a scraper chooses to behave,” a Patreon blog post states.

During testing, individual AI training crawlers’ weekly attempts to access Patreon dropped from “thousands to zero,” indicating the bots had ignored robots.txt. However, Patreon will allow bots that index pages and organize information to direct users back to the platform.

“As AI agents become increasingly powerful, creators deserve a meaningful say in how their work is used by AI companies,” said Patreon’s product chief Drew Rowny. “On most of the Internet, creators have to accept AI training just to grow an audience. Patreon has a different vision: creators should be able to grow and control how their work is used.”