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Patreon announced on Thursday that it\u2019s partnering with Cloudflare to block crawlers from stealing creators\u2019 work to train AI models.\u201cI HAVE A KICKASS PRODUCT UPDATE FOR YOU ALL!\u201d Jack Conte, the founder and CEO of Patreon, wrote in a post on Instagram with the superimposed text, \u201cPOV: you’re CEO of one of these fucking tech companies, so you do what you want.\u201d\u00a0\u201cPatreon has partnered with an internet infrastructure company called Cloudflare to block Al training crawlers from using the work you publish on your Patreon to train their Al models,\u201d Conte wrote. \u201cThis is live and happening at the network level on all posts published on Patreon.\u201dLast year, internet infrastructure company Cloudflare, which provides cybersecurity protection and content delivery services to websites, announced that it would start blocking AI crawlers from accessing content without website owners\u2019 permission or compensation by default. And earlier this month, Cloudflare announced new options for website owners to control AI traffic based on whether bots are search, agent, or training crawlers. In September, according to the company\u2019s blog, all new domains onboarding to Cloudflare will have training and agent bots blocked by default on pages that display ads, while search crawlers will remain allowed by default.\u201cCreators deserve credit, compensation, and consent. If that’s not on the table, the crawlers can stay the fuck off Patreon. The free internet is alive and happening. The rebellion has already started,\u201d Conte wrote in his post.\u00a0In May, Conte posted a 43-minute video addressing how the AI industry fails to compensate creators. \u201cCreators deserve consent, credit and compensation,\u201d Conte said in the video. \u201cConsent meaning, \u2018Do I get to opt out of my work being used by these models as training data?\u2019 Credit meaning, \u2018If my work is used and you just replicate my whole vibe as an artist\u2026 do I get credit for that?\u2019 And then compensation, meaning, \u2018Do I get paid when that happens?\u2019 Unfortunately, the answer to all three of these questions right now is a big fat \u2018No.\u2019\u201dAI-generated works are permitted on Patreon, as long as they comply with the platform’s terms of use. In 2024, 404 Media reported that many creators of nonconsensual sexual images and videos monetized their content on Patreon. Last year, Patreon updated its content guidelines for AI content to state: \u201cAI-generated depictions of people that are illustrated\/animated are permitted; AI-generated hyperrealistic depictions of people are permitted only if the people are real and have documented their explicit consent.\u201d\u00a0Patreon and Cloudflare did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n