Archive of Our Own cyberattack outage, Digi Mart USA News (Los Angeles, United States): One of the world’s most popular fan fiction libraries has been dark for over a week after a cyberattack forced it offline, leaving millions of fans without access to their favorite stories.
Since October 29, anyone trying to reach Archive of Our Own, known to devotees as AO3, has been met with a message saying the site is down for maintenance. Writer and bookstore co-founder Johanna Sarriot told AFP that the outage has been widely discussed on social media, with people in withdrawal.
Fan fiction refers to stories written by amateur authors using characters and worlds from existing books, films or TV shows. Contributors rewrite endings, invent romances or give minor characters their own adventures, then share them online for free.
Once a niche hobby, fan fiction has become a launchpad for the publishing industry. It produced breakout successes such as E.L.
James’s “Fifty Shades of Grey,” which began as “Twilight” fan fiction, and Ali Hazelwood’s bestseller “The Love Hypothesis,” which grew out of the “Star Wars” universe.
Launched in 2008, AO3 has become the genre’s main home, with more than 11 million registered users and nearly 18 million works stored on the platform. In 2019, it won a Hugo Award for Best Related Work, one of science fiction’s most prestigious prizes.
Harvard Law School professor Rebecca Tushnet, who helped found the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), which runs the site, said the goal was to provide a non-commercial space for fandom. “We wanted to make sure that there was a place for fans to engage in non-commercial creativity in ways that wouldn’t barrage them with ads, censor them to placate advertisers, sell their data, or do anything but provide a space for fandom,” she said.
Romance fans have been among the hardest hit by the outage. Sarriot said romance readers read quickly and in large quantities.
For the bookseller, the stakes extend beyond a website, since fan fiction is where many future authors learn their craft and where readers discover new writers.
OTW says it does not believe the user database, which holds usernames, email addresses and encrypted passwords, was stolen, but it cannot rule that out. Tushnet added that no data has been lost and that the group looks forward to restoring the site as soon as possible.
The non-profit says it hopes to have the site up and running again within a month.
Web developer Yohan Mebrouk said the timeline reflects how serious the attack was. The delay could reflect limited resources or the need for a full software upgrade, which he called “an enormous job.” He noted that well-run sites keep backup copies of their databases.
“If they did things right, everyone will get everything back.”
In the meantime, Sarriot is directing stranded readers to other options, including her bookstore’s shelves of romance paperbacks.
