A24 skipped asking the internet before its SCP Foundation movie, so a rival studio did it right

The SCP Foundation is a collaborative fiction project started in 2008, built around a fictional secret organization that studies and contains dangerous or supernatural objects and phenomena. It's written collectively online by a large community of contributors, producing well-known entries like SCP-173, a hostile statue, and SCP-096, a creature that attacks anyone who sees its face.

Why it matters: none of that content belongs to any single person or company. It exists because every contributor agreed, from the start, to release their work under an open license that anyone else could build on.

All SCP Foundation content is released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 3.0 or later. The "ShareAlike" clause requires that any derivative work, including a feature film, also be released under a compatible open license.

In real life it's like inheriting a family recipe with one condition attached: whatever you cook with it, you have to publish the recipe for too, no matter how fancy the restaurant that serves it.

Why it matters: that's a dramatically different deal than how film studios normally option source material. A typical IP deal buys exclusive rights. This one legally can't grant exclusivity at all, no matter how much a studio might want it.

A24 announced a film called V/H/S: SCP Foundation without contacting or consulting the SCP Wiki's staff and administrators beforehand. The Wiki's staff published a statement saying plainly that they had no communication with the filmmakers, producers, or distributors involved.

Why it matters: skipping that conversation wasn't just a courtesy failure. It left the people closest to the source material unable to confirm whether the production even understood the license it was legally bound to follow.

No. The SCP Wiki's official statement was direct: A24 "does not and cannot have any exclusive rights to anything related to the SCP Foundation."

Why it matters: that line closes off any assumption that a big studio's involvement automatically comes with the usual exclusivity. Under this license, exclusivity simply isn't on the table for anyone, regardless of budget or distribution muscle.

By the numbers: the SCP Wiki's statement laid out clear restrictions. A compliant film can't use DRM or copy-prevention technology, can't claim exclusive distribution rights, can't prevent others from making derivative works, can't stop theaters from copying the film, and can't impose restrictive terms on theatrical distribution.

Why it matters: several of those restrictions directly clash with how movies are normally distributed and protected, which is exactly why this situation is such an unusual test case for Hollywood.

Neon says it will release its own SCP Foundation anthology film and related materials under the CC BY-SA license, fully matching what the Foundation requires. The SCP Wiki's staff responded publicly, crediting Neon's "excellent communication and commitment to following the requirements of our license."

Why it matters: that public endorsement from the source community is the clearest signal that Neon's approach is the compliant one, in direct contrast to how the A24 situation played out.

No. The SCP Wiki's statement clarified that even a film using no existing SCP entries would still count as a derivative work subject to the same licensing obligations, comparing the situation to how every Star Trek series, regardless of new characters or settings, still derives from the original show.

Why it matters: that closes an obvious loophole. A studio can't simply write new characters set in a vaguely SCP-like world and claim it's outside the license's reach.

Neon's anthology film is set for a 2027 theatrical release, featuring emerging filmmakers working alongside creators drawn directly from the SCP Foundation community itself, the same community that spent nearly two decades building this entire fictional universe for free.

Background: Neon was founded in 2017 and has built a reputation for both prestige filmmaking and indie horror, distributing Bong Joon-ho's Parasite, which became the first non-English film to win the Best Picture Oscar, as well as the more recent Best Picture winner Anora. It has also released acclaimed horror titles including Titane and Infinity Pool.

Neon and A24 have competed directly for years, frequently bidding against each other for the same films at festivals. That existing rivalry gives this particular dispute an extra edge: it's not just a studio making a licensing mistake, it's that mistake handing a direct competitor an easy opportunity to look better by comparison.

Why it matters: Neon's horror credentials specifically matter here too. This isn't a studio dabbling outside its lane to capitalize on a rival's stumble, it's a distributor with real standing in exactly the genre space SCP Foundation content occupies, which makes its compliant approach more credible to genre fans than if an unrelated studio had simply swooped in.

Background: open licensing applied to film isn't entirely unprecedented, independent and community-driven productions have experimented with Creative Commons releases for years, though almost always at a much smaller scale than a theatrical studio release.

Why it matters: what makes this case different is the combination of scale and forced compliance. This isn't a small passion project choosing an open license voluntarily, it's a major theatrical distributor legally required to use one because of the source material's existing rules, which is a meaningfully different test of whether open licensing can coexist with standard studio filmmaking and distribution economics.

• If you're a fan of SCP Foundation content, Neon's film is positioned to be the version the actual community endorses, based on the Wiki staff's own public statement.
• This is a genuinely rare real-world test of Creative Commons licensing at Hollywood scale, worth watching if you care about how open licenses hold up against major studio deals.
• Expect more friction like this as open, community-built fiction universes keep attracting film and TV interest, since the legal assumptions studios are used to don't automatically apply.
• A24's stumble here is a cautionary example for any company adapting community-owned IP: consulting the community first isn't just good etiquette, it can be a licensing requirement.