A24 Film Based on SCP Foundation Faces Licensing Questions — The Verge
Studio A24 is preparing a new installment of the V/H/S horror anthology set in the SCP Foundation universe, but the project has already raised questions about compliance with the Creative Commons license. As The Verge reports, the SCP Foundation Wiki said it had not been in contact with the project's creators, producers, or distributors. A wiki administrator using the pseudonym DrEverettMann also told the publication that community representatives had received no response to several attempts to contact them after the announcement.
License terms
The SCP Foundation is a collective internet project in the science fiction and cosmic horror genres. Its stories are presented as documentation from a fictional organization that documents, captures, and contains paranormal or supernatural anomalies. SCP materials are distributed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license.
This license allows the use of materials, including for commercial purposes, but adaptations must be distributed under the same terms. Creative Commons CEO Anna Tumadóttir explained to The Verge that, in the absence of a separate agreement with rights holders, a studio film would have to be released under CC BY-SA 3.0 or a compatible newer license, with attribution to the authors and without exclusive distribution rights.
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Producers' position
A24 declined to comment. At the same time, Monique Levine, a representative of Image Nation Studios and Spooky Pictures, said that the worldwide rights mentioned by A24 concern the specific film being produced, rather than the entire SCP universe.
University of Michigan and Villanova University law professor Paul Shinoh stated that A24 or other companies can make an SCP-based film and show it in theaters. At the same time, he said, the studio would not be able to prevent others from creating adaptations of its film or distributing it. DrEverettMann also explained that the license does not prohibit theaters from selling tickets, but does not provide for the usual exclusivity of theatrical distribution, since a licensed work can be legally downloaded and distributed.
Among the possible options for producers, The Verge names releasing the film under ShareAlike terms or abandoning the SCP brand while using only the general motifs of the source material.
