← All news·2026-07-17·3 min read

Patreon blocks AI-based scraper bots instead of politely asking them to stop

Patreon blocks AI training bots using Cloudflare and AI Crawl Control. One training bot went from thousands of attempts per week down to none. The AI bots have ignored robots.txt files for years despite being told not to crawl.

aiscrapingcopyrightplatforms

Patreon is no longer politely asking AI bots to go away — it’s blocking them. Patreon has partnered with Cloudflare and their AI Crawl Control technology to block one AI training bot that was previously making thousands of attempts per week. The bots have ignored the robots.txt rules for years even though it told them not to crawl.

Patreon is the first large paid subscription service to take technical measures against AI bots. This represents an industry-wide shift toward automatic verification of agreements with AI companies.

Source: techcrunch.com

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EAEvgenii Arsentev

Author

Evgenii Arsentev

PhD · Chief Executive Officer, digital health