Are AI services making use of sites such as removepaywall.com and archive.ph to circumvent paywalls and access paid articles?

Question 1 of 3 for Bing Chat: Are AI services making use of sites such as removepaywall.com and archive.ph to circumvent paywalls and access paid articles?

Bing Chat’s answer:That’s an interesting question. I don’t have a definitive answer, but I can share some information that might be relevant.

According to one source1, RemovePaywall.com is a website that can remove the paywall for most news and blog websites by showing users an archived version of the article. It works on sites like New York Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg, Harvard Business Review and dozens more2. The site claims to use a collection of different archives like Google Archive, Bing Archive, Archive.org and Archive.today1.

Another source3 reports that some publishers, such as Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (F.A.Z.), are using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to predict which articles will work best behind the paywall and optimize their subscription conversion rates. The tool, developed with the support of the Google News Initiative, delivers their editors predictions based on data sources such as the conversions of all previous paid articles, including some metadata like author, department and date of publishing3.

There are also some Chrome extensions that claim to bypass paywalls and ads from any news article or blog, such as Bardeen4 and Remove Paywall2. Bardeen is not designed for paywall removal, but rather for powerful workflow automations such as syncing data between your apps like Google Sheets, Notion, and ClickUp. Additionally, Bardeen empowers you to incorporate AI into your workflow without coding through integrations like OpenAI4. Remove Paywall is a Chrome extension that works similarly to RemovePaywall.com by finding archived versions of a website2.

However, not all paywalls are easy to bypass. Some are called hard paywalls, which require a subscription or payment before any content can be accessed. These are more difficult to circumvent than soft paywalls, which allow some free content or a limited number of views per month. Some examples of hard paywalls are The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and The Economist4.

I hope this information helps you understand some of the ways that AI services might make use of sites like RemovePaywall.com and Archive.ph to circumvent paywalls and access paid articles. However, I cannot confirm or deny whether they actually do so or not.

Question 2 of 3 for Bing Chat: List sites and services similar to removepaywall.com and archive.ph

Bing Chat’s answer:Here are some sites and services similar to RemovePaywall.com and Archive.ph that I found:

• 12ft.io: This site claims to show users an archived version of the article without a paywall. It works on sites like The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Economist and more1.

• Bardeen: This is a Chrome extension that allows users to bypass paywalls and ads from any news article or blog. It also enables users to create powerful workflow automations and integrate AI into their workflow without coding2 .

• Remove Paywall: This is another Chrome extension that works similarly to RemovePaywall.com by finding archived versions of a website. It works on sites like New York Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg, Harvard Business Review and dozens more1.

• Archive.is: This is a website that allows users to create a copy of a webpage that will always be up even if the original link is down. It can be used to access articles without a paywall by using the archived link3.

Question 3 of 3 for Bing Chat: Are there other ways that allow AI services manage to read, translate and summarise news articles behind paywalls?

Bing Chat’s answer:There are different ways that AI services might manage to read, translate and summarize news articles behind paywalls, depending on the type of paywall and the service they use. Here are some possible methods:

• Using Google or Facebook redirects: Some paywalled websites allow users to access their articles for free if they arrive from Google search or Facebook links. AI services might use this method by pasting the headline in Google or adding a Facebook prefix to the URL of the article12.

• Opening the link in an incognito window: Some paywalled websites use a metered paywall, which means they allow a certain number of free articles per month before asking for payment. AI services might use this method by opening the link in an incognito window, which prevents the website from tracking the number of articles viewed12.

• Using web archives: Some paywalled websites have their articles archived by services like Archive.org or Archive.today, which allow users to view a snapshot of the webpage at a certain date. AI services might use this method by finding the archived version of the article and reading it for free12.

• Using text summarizers: Some AI services might use text summarizers, which are tools that can condense articles, papers, or documents down to the key points instantly. These tools use natural language processing to locate critical information while maintaining the original context. For example, QuillBot is a text summarizer that can also paraphrase and rewrite sentences3.

• Using Bing AI: According to a Reddit post, Bing AI can work around paywalled articles by using its own natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to extract the main content of the article and display it as a summary. The post claims that this works on sites like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Economist4. However, I cannot verify the accuracy or reliability of this claim.

I hope this information helps you understand some of the ways that AI services might manage to read, translate and summarize news articles behind paywalls. However, I cannot confirm or deny whether they actually do so or not.

[ChatGPT-4: AI services do not employ these methods to access information]

[Google Bard: I'm not programmed to assist with that.]