SCP Foundation Calls Out A24 Over Planned V/H/S: SCP Film

Yesterday the horror‑enthusiast world got a surprise: Variety reported that A24, in partnership with Spooky Pictures and Image Nation Studios, has secured “worldwide rights” to a new entry in the V/H/S anthology, tentatively titled V/H/S: SCP. The project promises a mash‑up of the beloved SCP Foundation lore with the gritty, found‑footage style the series is known for.

But the excitement was quickly dampened by an official statement from the SCP Foundation itself. In a surprisingly blunt note, the volunteer‑run community behind the SCP Wiki said they “have not been consulted or contacted” by any of the filmmakers, producers, or distributors involved. In other words, the foundation wasn’t invited to the table at all.

Why does that matter? Because every SCP entry – the creepy objects, anomalous locations, and the whole mythos – lives under a Creative Commons Attribution‑ShareAlike 3.0 license (CC BY‑SA 3.0). That licence is a bit of a double‑edged sword: it lets anyone remix, distribute, or even sell works based on the material, but it also bans any sort of DRM or other technological lock‑outs that would stop others from sharing it.

Put simply, the foundation argues that A24 cannot claim “exclusive rights” to anything SCP‑related. If the movie were to be released under the same CC BY‑SA terms, anyone could theoretically upload it to YouTube, stream it for free, or otherwise share it without paying the studio. The statement even went so far as to say that anyone could do that “for free,” a line that feels like a gentle jab at A24’s usual commercial model.

Legal nerds might point out that the CC BY‑SA license does allow commercial exploitation – you can sell a CC‑licensed work – but you must do so under the same license. That means A24 could charge for a theatrical run or a streaming window, yet they’d have to let the same version be posted elsewhere without a paywall. In practice, that’s a tough sell for a big‑budget indie studio.

There’s a precedent that makes the foundation’s concerns feel less hypothetical. Back in 2019 a Russian businessman tried to trademark the SCP name and logo, hoping to monopolize the brand in his country. The move was struck down by the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service after a costly legal fight that forced the SCP community to crowdfund a defense. The lesson? Even a tiny, determined opponent can challenge big‑player claims, and fighting a studio like A24 would likely be far more expensive.

Adding fuel to the fire, A24 recently ran into trouble with the Backrooms community – a separate internet‑created universe – when automated copyright strikes were issued against fan games and artworks. The studio quickly retracted, saying the strikes were “automated” and that they never intended to claim ownership of community works. That misstep probably didn’t sit well with the SCP volunteers, who have watched the drama unfold from the sidelines.

In an update posted on September 12, a spokesperson for A24 tried to smooth things over. The studio claimed it “is not asserting any right to prevent others from creating their own SCP‑based works” and emphasized that V/H/S: SCP is meant as a “tribute to the community that created this world.” The official line now reads: the worldwide rights they hold apply only to the next V/H/S film, not to the SCP universe itself.

So where does this leave the project? Legally, the SCP Foundation’s point is solid: the Creative Commons licence limits how exclusive any adaptation can be. Practically, it’s a standoff between a community‑run open‑source mythos and a polished, profit‑driven studio. Fans will be watching closely, not just for the movie itself, but for how the two sides navigate the strange middle ground of internet culture and Hollywood economics.