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Licensing
License Experts (TroyL, 7 Jan 2014)
This is the first written report for the License Experts. To write a report, simply create a new page using the new page template at the top of this tabbed document. All pages created using that tool will be logged here and kept.
Enjoy!
On-Site vs Off-Site (Drewbear, 12 Jan 2014)*
Although our primary focus will be off-site licensing issues, we also need to be aware of on-site issues as well. I'd like to avoid things like what happened with the Dragonsnails. We need to have an easy way for off-wiki people to contact us about on-site violations. I'm going to consult with the Tech Team about ways to incorporate a way, but here are my ideas so far. Feel free to add others:
- Official licensing email (through Gmail?) that everyone on the License Team has the password for, the address for which is linked somewhere on the wiki.
- Submission form on the wiki that goes to one of our wiki inboxes (probably the captain).
(from Scantron) We should implement at least two distinct ways for people to get in touch with us, in case one doesn't work for the person in question. Email and submission form both sound like good plans. And for the record, AFAIK, Gmail is as good a provider as any. And at least it's more official-looking than Yahoo.
Resolved - Haunted House SCP and Video (SoullessSingularity, 12 Jan 2014)*
There's a haunted house SCP and video thing and I don't see any licensing on it.
Drewbear: I'd given them the licensing info in one of their earlier threads, albeit with regards to the actual haunted house itself rather than the online presence. I'll talk with them.
Scantron: Link to the previous thread, for reference.
Drewbear: I spoke with them and they said that they will update with the license info. I'll check again in a few days.
Drewbear: Just checked on 1/16/14 and attribution is up and good. Matter resolved.
Licensing Links (Drewbear, 14 Jan 2014)*
Here's a list of useful links for reference & to direct people towards as needed:
Also, some generic language that can be inserted in derivative material:
Material contained within is based on the SCP Foundation and copyrighted under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-SA 3.0) license.
http://www.scp-wiki.net/
[Insert links to specific SCP pages as appropriate]
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
RESOLVED - User seeking permission (Drewbear, 14 Jan 2014)*
User Jay Hawk PM'd me with the following:
I replied with the following:
Matter appears resolved.
RESOLVED - Hentai Foundry (MisterFlames, 15 Jan 2014)*
Copyright notices for NSFW SCP-682 digital painting and this second NSFW SCP-682 appear to be in violation of CC.
quick Commission for Ulti
art done in photoshop, open canvas and sai with a wacom art(C) me
character(C)Ulti
Drewbear: Turns out the artist has a deviantArt account as well, so I PM'd them there:
Drewbear: No response to the dA message and the original pics still don't have attribution after more than 10 days. Sending the following message to the email listed in her profile:
Drewbear: She responded, telling me that she removed the names and the pics could just be considered generic monster girls. Sounded like she didn't want to remove her current copyrights or add ours. But eh, she removed calling them "SCP-682" and they are generic enough. As far as I'm concerned, the matter is resolved.
CotBG wiki (Drewbear, 15 Jan 2014)*
Someone made a Church of the Broken God wiki. It was brought to our attention with initial info here. Echo sent the following:
Drewbear: Aaaaand the wiki has been deleted as of 1/16/14. *shrug* The TVTropes page is still up, though.
Scantron: Eh, might as well let their people clean it up. Unless one of us WANTS to go take care of it, then of course they can.
RESOLVED - Google Play Apps, Pt. 1 (Account Deleted, 16 Jan 2014)*
RESOLVED - Possible foreign violation (Drewbear, 29 Jan 2014)
Someone on the Facebook SCP group posted this:
http://lazylife.at-ninja.jp/scp131.html
Now, I have exactly zero ability to translate Japanese, but Google Translate says this is a papercraft thingie. They do provide a link to the Japanese wiki and an explicit statement that this is a SCP Foundation thing, but don't include any license info. I don't think they're selling them, so I'm not terribly concerned about license compliance, but I'd like to get someone who DOES know Japanese to check it out. International Team, can you reach out to the Japanese wiki?
Edit, Drewbear: ghostchibi looked it over and says it's a free papercraft pattern download, not anything for sale. So I'm cool with it and don't think any actions need to be taken at this time.
RESOLVED - CafePress (Drewbear, 9 Feb 2014)
So I was web-wandering and stumbled across this guy and his merch:
http://www.cafepress.com/profile/117830
http://www.cafepress.com/dd/67933676
http://www.cafepress.com/dd/67933793
Unless I'm missing something, none of it appears to be properly attributed, so I'm going to try to contact him &/or CafePress.
Edit: Sent the following to CafePress's email box for trademark issues
Just got a response back from CafePress's IP Manager. Apparently the above links are associated with the CafePress store TheFactoryOnline, which does have correct attribution on its mainpage. Situation resolved.
http://www.cafepress.com/thefactoryonline
Snowy Games (Drewbear, 12 Feb 2014)
bluesoul posted the following into the forums:
ProcyonLotor posted this to SSSC: http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/224958-scp-2096
Contents are as follows:Added: 20 January 2014
Created by: Snowy Games
Version: 1
Game description: Explore the hallways of SCP-2096, evade the monster within, and maybe, just maybe, survive. Made with Andrew Farnsworth's Demon Engine.
Tags: scp secure contain protect special containment procedures hallway allwaysAnd his avatar's the SCP logo. The twist is SCP-2096 doesn't exist. So while it's not a direct connection like CB or the SCP-087-B game, it is generally inspired by the site. As such, I sent him this message:
Hi there, I'm a member of the SCP Wiki staff. Another staff member linked me to this as it's unattributed. To satisfy the site's Creative Commons license, we ask that you attribute work derived from the SCP site as such, and any product derived from the wiki must be licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 as well. Take a look at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ for a human-readable version on what using SCP content entails for a game. Good luck with the game, may you make many more. :)
RESOLVED - 966 Work (Account Deleted, 6 Mar 2014)*
Crayne alerted me to this. It seems cool, and the person doesn't appear to be claiming ownership. That said, I'll e-mail them in the next day or so with a friendly reminder about the nature of the CC License.
Greenwolf took a look, licensing appears to be in order for this page (and all the other, unmentioned, pages) now with linkbacks and the CC license at the bottom of the page. Marking as resolved. -Procyon
(Resolved) Google Play and SkyMidnight (Account Deleted, 13 Mar 2014)
RESOLVED - Creepypasta/Holders/SCP App (Account Deleted, 9 Apr 2014)
Sent this guy the standard "you need to attribute + release under CC" spiel.
Got a response:
Hello,
I am sorry for don't having done it before, but in the next update I will put the credits to your website and the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license (attach screenshot).
I take this opportunity to tell you that your work is wonderful.
I'll upload the screenshots. Why can't everyone be this accommodating?
Teesprings and the Use of Unlicensed Art (DrKens, 19 Apr 2014)
Group has created a t-shirt based off of the posters created by DrKens with neither proper attribution to the original art nor the creator's agreement. (Teesprings has a clause in their Terms of Service that indicate that art used in t-shirts must have the approval of the original creator.)
DrKens has sent an email to Teesprings about the issue, and is now awaiting response.
Proposal On Areas Of Responsibility (Account Deleted, 26 Apr 2014)*
As it currently stands, this team is very disorganized. Near as I can tell, we just kind of check licenses whenever someone brings it to our attention, or if we happen to notice something. This isn't a practical way to go about finding licensing violations.
I think it would be more efficient for the team to create certain areas of responsibility centered around certain sites such as Google Play, CafePress, TeeSpring, etc. Once a week or so, the person tasked with a particular site would search that site for any SCP-related terms1 to check for any unattributed merchandise/materials. If you find anything, bring post it here and try to contact the vendor.
If anyone has any thoughts, contributions, or objections, that they'd like to make known about this, I would like to hear them. In particular, I'd like to hear suggestions about sites that should be checked frequently. Anything that is sufficiently large and allows users to submit designs/apps/whathaveyou would be a good start.
Tentative List
- Gaffney
Drewbear: iTunes & Redbubble immediately come to mind. Also, this is a good proposal.
Cool. Also, in case it's unclear, we should continue trawl as well. Just as a supplement to the more organized searches.
-Gaffs
Dexa I could get behind this. My biggest issue with this is the fact that I don't actually browse many sites outside Reddit and SCP and occasionally Tumblr. Actually being tasked to a particular domain would help me actually do my job better.
Drewbear: I also thought that we might want to set up a whitelist. Places/people/items/apps that we've already checked out as compliant, so we don't have to keep checking them again and again.
This sounds good as well. God knows how much time I've wasted checking out all of the translated SCP database apps that have all checked out.
- Gaffs
Alright, cool. So, now that I am benevolent overlord head of Licensing Experts, I think now's the time to put this into place. Unless anyone has any particular preference/sites that they frequently peruse, I'm just going to assign things semi-randomly. Let me know!
Form Letter for CC stuff (Account Deleted, 1 May 2014)*
[Generic Salutations],
My name is [name], and I am a staff member at the SCP Foundation. [One/several] of your [products/works] on [relevant website] [use/uses] content derived from works found on the SCP Foundation website. The direct link for the work is [relevant page link]. While we're happy to see people using work from our community, the Foundation uses a Creative Commons Share-Alike (CC-SA) license, as does all work deriving from works on the site. This means:
1. You need to attribute this content to where it came from - in this case, the SCP Foundation [and specific authors, if applicable]
2. Any material you create associated with or based on these works needs to be released under the same CC-BY-SA 3.0 license [include link to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/] it originated from. A link to the license should be provided as well.
Here is a sample attribution:
> Material contained within is based on the SCP Foundation and copyrighted under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-SA 3.0) license.
> http://www.scp-wiki.net/
> [Insert links to specific SCP pages as appropriate]
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
More information can be found in the link provided. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Additionally, you can talk to SCP staff on IRC; anyone on will be happy to answer any question you may have.
[Generic Ending],
[Name]
I've been using something like this whenever I bug people on Google Play, and have found it decent enough. I thought it might be easier to use a form letter. If there are any changes that need to be made, whether for content or tone, please let me know.
Gaffney
Drewbear: Added a sentence with a direct link to the offending work. Necessary if we send this to the host rather than the content maker.
(RESOLVED) Tee Spring Thing (Account Deleted, 16 May 2014)
Sent a form letter.
Thank you for your correspondence.
The following campaigns have expired, and the links will be disabled:
http://teespring.com/scp049
http://teespring.com/scp173
So, uh, success? Not really, though.This underscores the importance of keeping on top of licensing stuff, as teespring seems to be very time-sensitive.
CC Whitelist (Account Deleted, 22 May 2014)*
THE WAY THIS WORKS: If you've checked an app/piece of merchandise that has the proper attribution OR you've contacted the creator of an improperly attributed app/piece of merchandise, and they've since correctly attributed it, put it here. Include the name of the work, and the relevant URL, if applicable.
Sign-up for sites is here
Google Play
Slendy SCP Mod by GuyFarting
Slendy SCP Mod (Ad Free) by GuyFarting
SCP Containment Breach 3D by INeedPlay
SCP Database by Vector
+ DeviantArt4
+ CafePress
+ iTunes
+ Amazon
+ Redbubble
Assignments (Account Deleted, 22 May 2014)*
Try to patrol the sites you're assigned at least twice a week. Put any merchandise that properly conforms to the licensing stuff on the whitelist.
Assigned Sites
Google Play (Gaffney)
Amazon (Eskobar)
TeeSpring (Dexanote)
CafePress (Scantron)
Unassigned Sites
DeviantArt
iTunes
(RESOLVED) Google Play App (Account Deleted, 5 Jun 2014)
Sent a letter.
They added correct attribution. All is well.
RESOLVED (PARTIALLY) - Oh My Dear Merciful God, Roblox (Eskobar, 8 Jun 2014)*
I had never heard of Roblox before last week, but the admins of the CI wiki contacted me concerning some license violations regarding their wiki. Since their wiki is derivative of our wiki and most of their relevant content comes from us, I checked it out as a part of our licensing duties. Found unattributed licensing violations on all of the following group pages:
Since the Roblox Rules of Conduct specifically state:
Do not upload or use content that is owned and/or has a copyright, patent or trademark without permission of the owner. You warrant that you have permission to use any content or materials belonging to another person when it is uploaded to our site. ROBLOX will remove without notice any content that violates another’s Intellectual Property Rights upon request of the rightful owner
I clicked on the "Report Abuse" links on each of these pages and sent a variation of the following message:
Now, those are the small-fry people. There's also the SCP Foundation group, which has almost 4,500 members, which is also unattributed. I don't want to C&D them, since it's a bunch of kids playing a shitty Lego knockoff on the Internet, but it's a huge group, there's nothing even resembling an awareness of attribution requirements, and at least one of them is selling merch under the SCP Foundation group name, which looks hells of official. I haven't contacted Roblox about these groups yet. Thoughts?
UPDATE: Contacted the owner of the SCP Foundation group directly and explained the licensing requirements:
(Zyn addition.) One of the ROBLOX members, Xenien, appeared in #site17 to talk to Eskobar. ProcyonLotor notified me, and I spoke with them.
UPDATE: Several of the group owners that I contacted got back to me. Most were pretty dismissive or confused by what I was asking of them, but two groups, including the big, 4500-member strong one, did comply and added links to the wiki and the CC license. To be honest, it's probably the best we'll get from this particular situation.
(Resolved) Illustrated Creepypasta anthology (Account Deleted, 9 Jun 2014)
A user brought to my attention the existence of /creepythread, an illustrated anthology of well-known creepypasta. It includes illustrations based off of SCP-231 and SCP-1192. These things are being sold for $15 a pop, and there's no indication that CC licensing requirements have been followed. I sent an e-mail to Peter Schmidt, the guy at whose site the things are being sold, telling him about CC stuff, but emphasizing that we're not trying to shut him down. I'll keep everyone posted.
I got a reply:
Thanks a lot [Gaffs],
I appreciate the info and the check in as well as the well wishes.
I can assure you that the printed books attribute the SCP articles to the SCP foundation in specific and in general and with links. We will make sure to edit the attribute page if there are any further printings, just copy/pasting your attributions wording to be on the safe side. Also, just because we want to be as accommodating as possible I will edit the store and the tumblr page to contain the creative commons copyright info and a link to the scp wiki
Thanks again, I really do appreciate your contacting us
I hope you're well. Keep doing what you're doing, cuz SCP is the fucking ballerest
Peter
It also appears that they've added an attribution page to the storefront with the CC licensing stuff.
(Resolved) "The SCP Series One: The Collected Works of the SCP Foundation" (Eskobar, 18 Aug 2014)
We took care of this last week, but just thought I would post it so it's clear. Jack Whelan put an ebook version of SCPs 1-999 up on Amazon last week, and some concerns were raised that the book's contents weren't making enough of an effort to clarify the authorship/ownership/licensing terms of the wiki. Whelan got in touch with us in chat, we explained CC-BY-SA 3.0 attribution requirements, he explained that the attribution page on the ebook got lost in conversion (which Kens confirmed was a thing that happens a lot with conversions from .epub to .mobi and others). The page on Amazon now very specifically credits the Foundation and lists the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, and the text of the ebook does as well.
Hentai Foundry, again (Drewbear, 23 Jun 2014)*
I'm catching up on PMs from the last week or so and got one from Licensing Issue5 reporting that there's another violation on Hentai Foundry at:
http://www.hentai-foundry.com/pictures/user/ShadowFenrir/251603/Monster-Girl-SCP-682
I absolutely will NOT try that link while I'm at work, so can someone check this out, please?
Gaffs: The license is listed as "Berne Convention." So yeah, they need to fix that shit. Since you already have an account, do you want to message them?
Many thanks to Athena for plumbing the… murky depths of Hentai Foundry and drafting up an email for me to send. Artist has been contacted, will update with response.- Procyon
As of today (17/01/2016), the artist has received (in chronological order) a full email, a Tumblr message along the line of 'oi check your email', and I just reposted the email on the pic's comment section. Will give him a few days, but if he doesn't reply we can assume he's received our message, and move on to the next step - Athena
SCP-238 Game on Greenlight (Account Deleted, 24 Jun 2014)*
I was directed to the following by a user. I left a comment under my steam handle informing them of the obligations of the CC license. Strangely, the tumblr claimed that the game was licensed under a CC 4.0 BY-NC-ND agreement. I informed them that, no, that was not the case. I'll keep everyone posted.
New comment: "ok I go change all page's and remove all SCP contents" For the record, nothing appears to have changed.
Update 13/01/2016: They've moved the game's Tumblr page to a new URL. Of note is the second-latest post, which (as far as I can tell; the author apparently is not very proficient English speaker) states that the developers are planning to de-SCP the game, changing both the name and the story. At the same time, the Tumblr page still uses the SCP logo everywhere and has part of 238's text in the "Story" page, and the Steam page is basically unchanged.
The Steam page for the game was last updated on 3 Jul, 2014, and all the posts on the Tumblr page are listed as being from "1 year ago". The (main?) developer's Steam profile says they're still currently active there, though.
(As a side note, according to that Steam profile the developer is French. Maybe we could get someone who speaks French to talk them through Licensing?) - Athena
RESOLVEDish - Ebay SCP Buttons (Eskobar, 28 Jun 2014)*
Blaroth pointed me at this guy who's selling SCP buttons, four for $7.
- User identified in his PM to Blaroth as "Gavriel Discordia Episkopos" and said "We are Raising Funds for the Electronic Frontier Foundation via Ebay with SCP logos under CC 3.0 of course. We hope this is a viable and acceptable situation for all involved. We are not a part of the SCP writing community but fans of the wiki who have actually read through hundreds of SCP files. THX"
- Page has attribution to CC but no literal link to the wiki or actual clear-cut statement that the wiki is fictional. Also has no mention of the artists who created the logos in question, primarily because the guy had no idea who they were. However, he did say "We would be glad to add anyone who wants appropriate credit…"
- Guy is also donating 25% of the proceeds of the buttons to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, if that's relevant at all. I'm a little put off that he describes it as "raising funds for EFF" when so comparatively small a part of the proceeds are going to that cause, but I leave that for others to worry about. He also said in his message that he could "increase the donation amount to 50% if need be."
- He does not seem to desire nor advertise this as a wiki- or staff-endorsed product, so that's not a concern.
- He also offered to "send packs to core staff," whoever that means. I'm not sure if I'd feel appropriate doing that since they're items for sale for fundraising for charity, but I'm just putting it forward.
- I contacted him via Facebook regarding the need for further CC attribution to the wiki:
Hi, this is Eskobar from the licensing team. I'm forwarding this to the other staff to discuss, but I can tell you that 1) staff tend to be wary of people selling SCP merchandise for revenue or profit (I don't know what your expenses were in producing these); this means that while you do have every legal right to sell these under CC-BY-SA 3.0, I can't promise that the senior staff will be supportive of the endeavor; and 2) while you have mentioned the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license in the listing, we would ask that you also list the URL of the website, http://www.scp-wiki.net, so as to attribute the SCP concept to the wiki itself. Roth can work on getting in touch with the SCP logo artists (I have no idea whatsoever who they are) so you can attribute them as well.
Thanks for getting in touch with us,
Eskobar
Moderator, SCP Foundation wiki
While the dude only has two of the three things we need (Far2 attribution for logo, CC mention, but no wiki backlink) the sale's been over for almost a year and a half now, and I think at this point it's the best we'll get. You can no longer buy these things, so any pursuit would just be tilting at windmills. Marking as resolved. -ProcyonLotor
Another SCP film (Eskobar, 8 Jul 2014)
Facebook user Adam Colgan asked via the Facebook page:
A few friends and I want to make a short film. And idea that came up was possibly doing a movie based off of the SCP website. We were wondering your thoughts and policies on this. We would attribute all stories to the respective authors and the scp site.
I replied:
Long answer: The SCP Foundation and all accompanying works are posted under the Creative Commons Share-Alike 3.0 license. The whole text of the license is at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode. If you're really looking to CYA, you can read over that, though we have more convenient versions as listed below.
Medium-length answer: We have a licensing guide at http://www.scp-wiki.net/licensing-guide that details the requirements of derivatives to keep up with Creative Commons requirements. I advise anyone who wants to make an SCP derivative to read that guide regardless.
Short answer: In your film, preferably in the credits but at the very least in the description to any version of the film (like the YouTube description area, for instance), you must give credit to the SCP wiki at http://www.scp-wiki.net and the Creative Commons Share-Alike 3.0 license that all SCP Foundation works are written under at the link listed above. We would /prefer/ it if you specifically credited any SCP, tale, or work that you use by name and author; if you have any questions about contacting authors of works you want to use, you can ask us and we'll poke around to see if any of the authors involved are still around.
Feel free to ask any more questions as they arise!
Thanks,
Eskobar
Moderator, SCP Foundation wiki
Will update as/if the situation develops.
RESOLVED - Sugar Pill ID badges (Eskobar, 18 Aug 2014)
Chibi pointed me at these guys over at Sugar Pill who are producing SCP Foundation ID badges. Pretty cool thing, but has no CC attribution. I used their on-site messaging app to get in touch with them:
Awaiting response. Received response.
The issue is considered resolved.
Amazon Music Unlicensed (SoullessSingularity, 18 Aug 2014)
Here is an MP3 being sold on amazon, which is pretty cool but lacks CC compliance.
Here is a different MP3 being sold on amazon, which is also pretty cool but also lacks CC compliance.
Sorry I couldn't really find much more info.
I saw those a while back. They were put on there forever ago and I didn't figure there was much hope of getting in contact with the original poster. — Eskobar
In accordance with standing orders from the Team Captain, as well as an inability to contact the content creators otherwise, a takedown has been requested via Amazon. -ProcyonLotor
(RESOLVED) Wattpad (Eskobar, 22 Aug 2014)
Users Snowykzero and "TheSCPSeries" on Wattpad, which appears to be some kind of microfiction/flash fiction self-publishing repository, have been busy bees. Specifically, they've been busy copying works (Tales and SCPs, respectively) from the wiki onto Wattpad under their names. The former have "dedicated" the works to their original authors; the latter has added little postscripts called "Ask the SCP" in which they do a fanfictiony Q&A with the SCP in question:
Q: How did you feel when you got captured? [to SCP-173]
A: I FELT TERRIFIED, I HAD TO BE PUT IN A CELL WITH THE REPTILE THING OH MY GOD I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE, I NEED A HUG.
Nary an attribution or discussion of license to be had.
TheSCPSeries plagiarized in whole SCPs 106, 714, 682, 173, 096, 049, 513, 087 (the text of which is plagiarized in whole, TWICE, in a separate story).
Snowykzero plagiarized in whole the tales "Slumbering" by Zyn, "Six Days" by Ludavex Ayanami, "Last Meetings" by Jacob Conwell, "Correspondence" by GrandEnder, "Wasteland" by DrGerald, "The End" by Gaffney, "A Lovely Day in the Garden" by Comwilson, "Loyal to the Cause" by Erku, "Friday" by Djoric, "Pitter-Patter" by Corerosion, "Broken?" by Boa Noah, "Faceless" by Anonymouse99, and "Bending Over Backwards" by Bennings.
I'm tired and I'm going to bed, but in the morning, I will investigate how to begin to…remedy this licensing…oversight.
Zyn edit: I submitted a copyright violation report. Here's the contents of the message:
Update: got a reply from the Wattpad Help Center. Very helpful, my goodness.
I sent the following replies, with lots of help from Esko in chat:
Also, submitted a ticket regarding the other plagiarizer:
Edit 08/25/14: Wattpad got back to me, and all of the works by TheSCPSeries containing plagiarized content have been removed. Snowykzero still has several plagiarized works up, but I've continued the support ticket and hopefully the staff will get to it soon.
The message I received was as follows:
Thank you, they have all been removed. Please let us know if you experience this in the future and we will assist you right away.
Nick
Your Wattpad Support Team
These staff are pretty great.
Edit II: Heard back from support team. All plagiarized works reported have been removed. Also, looks like Snowykzero isn't on the site anymore.
Issue is resolved, looks like. —Zyn
Edit 08/26/14 Coony found this. Apparently TheSCPSeries re-added plagiarized content, for 173, 049, and 106. I sent the following support ticket:
Here we go again…
Anyway, I also noticed that TheSCPSeries account person posted a comment, saying "Okay, so I just found out that all the SCP question books have been deleted, so I'm starting them again with a fresh start, so ask some random questions if you have any! :) I'm really going to need them."
Since I have a wattpad account now (force of necessity…) I posted the following response: "TheSCPSeries, the reason the SCP question books were deleted is because you took content directly from the SCP Foundation wikidot site without giving proper attribution/credit. Essentially, you were plagiarizing the material and that was reported. I'm a moderator on the SCP site, and if you'd like, I'd be happy to walk you through the proper attribution/copyright-compliant process. If you'd like proof that I'm actually Zyn from the mainsite, I can provide that as well."
We'll see how this goes…
Edit 2: And I broke radio silence to post on their profile page. They cited the work using MLA format, even after I told them how to properly attribute and linked them the licensing guide. Also, they included the additional text "CITATION BITCH" (sic).
Guess we're dealing with middle school kids. I'll keep an eye on them, but I'm not overly hopeful.
08/27/14 After that rather immature initial response, the plagiarized work has been taken down, and a new SCP-049 asks thing has been put up with the preface:
"Okay, the previous question books have been deleted due to me plagiarising from the SCP wiki site and I'm going to say I'm truly sorry for taking work without crediting, so here we are again, with a fresh start on the questionnare books for the SCPs and I hope you guys will enjoy it! <3 ~Mill xx"
I posted a comment, since they're still using site content and they seem to have deleted my other licensing comments:
"For proper licensing, all you need to do is have a statement like "this work is based on "SCP-049 - The Plague Doctor" by Gabriel Jade: http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-049, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) "
That said, I hope you enjoy writing more SCP asks material, and I'm glad you enjoy reading the site. Licensing can be a complicated issue to deal with. Feel free to ask SCP site staff if you have any further questions."
I'm not going to push on the whole "Oh yeah, and please do ask some questions to our SCPs below, we don't care how random they are… JUST ASK THEM SOMETHING. :D" bit on the profile, since these individuals do seem rather young and probably didn't know what they were doing. CB is just that cool, I guess.
Will keep an eye on from now on, but issue seems resolved.
Russian SCP movie Indiegogo (Eskobar, 23 Aug 2014)
Link here. Basically what it says in the title; an unnamed Russian group is trying to raise between $10,000 and $100,000 for a film, which will be of some length depending on exactly how much they actually raise. They have, in twelve days of having the fundraiser up, acquired approximately none monies. As such, I'll refrain from contacting them about CC-BY-SA 3.0 until they seem to show some signs of more development (as per prior instruction).
UPDATE: As of the end of their campaign on 20 September 2014, they had raised a grand total of precisely none monies. I think problem resolved?
This sounds very familiar. Did these same people try this same thing last year, with the same results? —Drewbear
RESOLVED - GlennLeroi (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 1 Sep 2014)
Dude has a hell of a lot of SCP-based songs. Sent him a letter with the song and dance about attribution. Will update.
Got the following response on Sunday:
Hi, I'm not really into the CC-SA license, so do I have to edit all the songs then like this?
Material contained within is based on the SCP Foundation and copyrighted under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-SA 3.0) license.
@
http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-173
@licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Show less
I responded:
+GlennLeroi"[Name of work] is based on "[Name of SCP]" by "[Name of Author]" (link to SCP)and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-SA 3.0) license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)"Just stick that in the description and everything will be a-okay!
e: Much belated checkup by Procyon- I investigated a good number of his videos, and all were in line. I'm comfortable calling this a wrap.
SCP-173 Licensing Hoedown Part I (Redbubble) (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 10 Sep 2014)
Got a response:
Given that they don't have a leg to stand on with regards to the counternotice, this will hopefully be the end of this particular issue. Americium241 has a bunch of other unattributed merchandise derived from SCP Foundation stuff, but that's for another time.
Further comment here: I got a message from the person who owns the store. I have redirected them to Gaffsey, but their concern is as follows: Some of the things taken down were their own drawings of SCP-173. The question is, then, does calling it SCP-173 on the shirt amount to a breach or would just having the image be fine? Or what is fine? Or is ANYTHING fine?
If they don't get in touch with your Gaffs, I'll repost their message here.
-Troy
I will hash it out on SSSC when I get a chance. However Kato said "I won’t complain about you and SCP foundation using my sculpture's image unless it is used for commercial purposes." While this may be referring to the specific photo taken by Keisuke Yamamoto, it seems very unlikely. I am of the opinion that Kato would not want any representations of Untitled 2004 being used for commercial purposes. Furthermore, the note on the page says
This sculpture and its likeness may not be used for commercial purposes under any circumstances
Not "SCP-173 and its likeness." This sculpture.
I suppose that they could remove all references to SCP-173 and claim that the design for the not-173 emerged fully-formed from their head, but that would be blatantly dishonest and easily disprovable.
Most everything else on the wiki is fair game (although if you're going with visual representations, please go with something that we've been able to source, like the dragon snails), so long as it's properly sourced. If Americium241 follows the licensing guidelines and properly license and attributes everything, then I have no beef with him.
tl;dr: My opinion is representations of SCP-173/Untitled 2004, even if you fail to label it as such. Otherwise, the policy on derivative stuff remains the same.
- Gaffs
I'd say that anything obviously based on Untitled 2004, whether the original pic or a drawing or whatever, counts and should be excluded from commerciality.
— Drewbear
Alright. All that's well and good, but here's the million dollar question: is it our job to track those down? We're supposed to be policing people that aren't following the CC licensing for us. This image was available on the internet for years before that. Hell, the picture itself was being spread as a "creepy picture" before 173's inception.
Is it our job to go after people using the image?
I, personally, tend to think that that level of duty isn't out job, guys. We have permission to use the image, and others are flaunting that use. Adaptations of the image aren't CC, either, since the picture hasn't been released as CC. We're getting in a very murky place here, guys, and this is a ridiculous amount of work you're wanting to undertake.
I don't think that the number of commercially-available SCP-173-related things is really that high, and I'd just as soon try to cover our asses. I mean, the most likely option is that the people selling 173-related stuff were unaware of the whole situation; it wasn't until this summer that we even bothered to mention "oh yeah, this isn't CC." So yeah, I think that we're within our bounds to ask people to take down 173 stuff that they're selling, or at least updating them on the situation.
On an unrelated note, I got into contact with Americium241.
-Gaffnery
RESOLVED SCP-173 Licensing Hoedown Part II (Etsy) (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 10 Sep 2014)
Someone made a SCP-173 plush. It wasn't attributed. It seems cool, and normally I'd just tell them to attribute the dang thing. However, it's of 173, so… yeah…
I'll let people know when I get a response.
It was taken down.
RESOLVED - SCP T-shirt (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 21 Sep 2014)
A guy made a thing. I posted in the thread telling him to read the licensing guide and to properly license it. Will update when things happen.
This either no longer exists or never happened in the first place. Either way, pursuing a reddit thread where nothing actually happened is not worth the time or effort involved. Marking as resolved. -Procyon
More Redbubble Stuff (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 4 Oct 2014)
There's some stuff on redbubble that a) uses 173 b) doesn't correctly attribute us. here and here. I sent the following:
Hello stroblmark/sugoitee,
I'm a moderator at the SCP Foundation website. One of your pieces "here":http://www.redbubble.com/people/stroblmark/works/12302517-scp-173-pillow?p=t-shirt&ref=shop_grid uses SCP-173. This piece of merchandise is problematic in two ways. First, it is not properly licensed. The SCP Foundation operates under the "Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license":http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ What this means is that all work deriving from SCP Foundation content must a) properly attribute the author b) be released under the same license. Your work does neither. Please fix this. A longer guide can be found "here":http://www.scp-wiki.net/licensing-guide
Second, and more importantly, the artist who made SCP-173, Izumi Kato, "has made it very explicit that he does not not wish for any derivatives of his work to be used for commercial purposes":http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/t-76692/scp-173#post-2106398 This means SCP-173 merchandise. While I do not represent Mr. Kato, I strongly suggest that you take his wishes into consideration. However, if you choose to continue selling SCP-173, you are required to correctly license it.
If you have any questions, please let me know and I will do my best to answer them.
Regards,
[Gaffney]
For the time being, that looks to be the end of 173-related stuff on RedBubble.
Sugiotees removed their product. Stroblmark has not. I'll contact them again in the near future. If they don't respond again, I'll do a takedown request, as it's not CC-compliant.
RESOLVED: Wattpad stuff (Roget, 30 Oct 2014)
Bennigs gave this to me, Gaffs said I could put it up here since everyone seemed busy.
http://www.wattpad.com/77211534-scp-documents
Page is now deleted.
Indiegogo Project (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 14 Nov 2014)
This person has started what I can only assume is meant to be a startup sort of thing. Or, y'know, it's the world's sloppiest scam. They stole from multiple pages, including About the SCP Foundation, Object Classes, Secure Facility Locations, and Task Forces. There was no attempt at subtlety.
I sent the Indiegogo people a message:
To whom it may concern,
My name is [Gaffs], and I am a moderator at the SCP Foundation website. Recently, someone brought this campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-real-scp-foundation to my attention. This page is problematic for several reasons. First, it does not conform to the Creative Commons Share Alike Attributive License. It contains content from multiple pages directly copypasted from the SCP Foundation website.
Second, and more importantly, the campaign itself is fake. The campaign appears to be premised upon the idea that the SCP Foundation is real, with the one (and only) perk being "take a tour of the main facility." The SCP Foundation is a collaborative fictional setting, and the staff of the website take pains to make it clear that the SCP Foundation is not real. This campaign appears to be trying to act as a "startup" for the Foundation. At best, it is an overzealous fan, while at worst, it is someone trying to scam credulous readers. In either case, it is prohibited content.
Regards,
[Gaffs]
Moderator, SCP Foundation
I might have been a bit more polite, but I think I got the point across. So yeah, rather than bothering with the legalese stuff, I just pointed out that it is, in all likelihood, a scam. I'll keep everyone posted.
I actually sent them a similar message yesterday, sorry about that but nobody was on and it was rather slow at work.
Prohibited Content: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/1002208
Hi there, I'm a staff member of the SCP Wiki (scp-wiki.net) which is a collaborative fiction-writing site licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike. While we have some successfully license-compliant projects out there such as the video game SCP: Containment Breach, the listing here is in no way compliant with our license or policies. While our authorization or blessing isn't required to make SCP-themed content, it is necessary to carry the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license and attribute scp-wiki.net.
Since we have never worked with this person and they're offering tours of a facility that does not exist, AND the project is flexibly funded, the chances of this person simply trying to steal money using our content is very high. Please delist this campaign as soon as possible.
Daniel
-bluesoul
EDIT: Got a response from IndieGoGo:
Hi Daniel,
Thank you for sharing your concern with us. At this time, the campaign is under review to ensure that it adheres to our Terms of Use (http://www.indiegogo.com/about/terms).
So what happens now? We will include the information you have provided along with all other information at our disposal in our review of the campaign. In some cases, we will contact the campaign owner to have them edit their campaign and it will remain on our platform. If the project doesn't follow our rules, we may remove the campaign. We may also restrict the campaign owner's future activities on Indiegogo.
To protect our users' privacy, we're unable to share the action we take. At Indiegogo, we take the trust and safety of our community very seriously, and we greatly appreciate your patience and understanding throughout this review process. To learn more about Indiegogo’s Trust & Safety effort, please visit: www.indiegogo.com/trust
Please note that you do not need to contact us again. Doing so would create a new ticket and prolong the process. Thank you again for taking the time to get in touch with us and for helping to keep Indiegogo a safe and secure platform.
Regards,
Jesse
Trust and Safety
Indiegogo
Question about attributing multiple works (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 23 Nov 2014)
Last week, a user came into #site17 asking about a licensing issue. I was busy at the time and so told them to PM me on the wiki. The following is the body of their PM:
Hi there Gaffney!
Like we were talking about in the chat, I'm writing a book about the SCP's, a novel, and I'm translating a PDF document for those in my country that wants to know more about this. So, the think is that I'm going to mention a lot of SCP's (about 80) and according to CCA-S3 I need to give credit to the creators of the SCP's (obviously) so my question is: Can I just paste the link to the original content in my documents and books? Because I was looking for some authors and some of them are just really… gone (in a manner of speak). So I was wondering if I can take this original link in my work like credit for those that wrote it.
By other hand, every single SCP that I will translate for my book will be upload to the -ES, 'cos for what I've seen, there's not much translated. Well that will be it, and thanks a lot for all the support and the work you guys are doing.
See ya!
I responded:
Hey, thanks for your patience.
So, if I'm reading you correctly, you want to provide a link to the works you're using, rather than making a full attribution (with name of the work, name of the author, etc.). If that is the case, that's fine. However, there is one caveat: all authors must be attributed in the same way. Therefore, you can't have a bunch of SCPs that are only linked to and then provide a full attribution to some random SCP articles.
I hope that that answers your question. If it doesn't, or if you have any further questions, feel free to let me know.
Best,
Gaffney
My response was based on my reading of Section 4(c) of the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 code, which reads in part:
If You Distribute, or Publicly Perform the Work or any Adaptations or Collections, You must … keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied … ; (ii) the title of the Work if supplied; … (iv) , consistent with Ssection [sic] 3(b), in the case of an Adaptation, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Adaptation (e.g., "French translation of the Work by Original Author," or "Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author"). The credit required by this Section 4(c) may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Adaptation or Collection, at a minimum such credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors.
If anyone feels that I'm in error, feel free to correct me.
Redbubble stuff (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 20 Dec 2014)
Among other things, Aporia Lovell helpfully pointed out that Redbubble user LawlessSquirrel has non-attributed SCP-173 stuff here and here.
Sent the following
Hello,
I’m a moderator at the SCP Foundation website. A couple of your pieces here use SCP-173. This piece of merchandise is problematic in two ways. First, it is not properly licensed. The SCP Foundation operates under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license . What this means is that all work deriving from SCP Foundation content must a) properly attribute the author b) be released under the same license. Your work does neither. Please fix this. A longer guide can be found here
Second, and more importantly, the artist who made SCP-173, Izumi Kato, has made it very explicit that he does not not wish for any derivatives of his work to be used for commercial purposes This means SCP-173 merchandise. While I do not represent Mr. Kato, I strongly suggest that you take his wishes into consideration. However, if you choose to continue selling SCP-173, you are required to correctly license it.
Regards,
[Gaffs]
RESOLVED - SCP-173 Mini (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 22 Dec 2014)
This guy has a tabletop mini of SCP-173. I sent the following.
Dear Mr. Shackelford,
I am a moderator for the SCP Foundation. One of your pieces (found here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/181480678/scp-173-the-sculpture-30mm-scale-table) use the likeness of SCP-173. This piece of merchandise is problematic in two ways. First, it is not properly licensed. The SCP Foundation operates under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license (found here:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/). What this means is that all work deriving from SCP Foundation content must a) properly attribute the author b) be released under the same license. Your work does neither. Please fix this. A longer guide can be found here: http://www.scp-wiki.net/licensing-guide
Second, and more importantly, the artist who made SCP-173, Izumi Kato, has made it very explicit that he does not not wish for any derivatives of his work to be used for commercial purposes This means SCP-173 merchandise. While I do not represent Mr. Kato, I strongly suggest that you take his wishes into consideration. However, if you choose to continue selling SCP-173, you are required to correctly license it. The text of his agreement can be found here: http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/t-76692/scp-173#post-2106398
Regards,
Gaffney
Moderator, SCP Foundation
Dear Mr. Gaffney,
I have thought about this issue a number of times before and I shall acquiesce your and Izumi Kato's request.
The whole SCP Foundation is one of the coolest things I've encountered online and has inspired me greatly. There are so many monsters and artifacts, each one better than the next, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make miniatures based on them. I was in the process of sculpting a whole series. I had 3 figures completed, SCP-173 being the first as it is arguably the most iconic. I even thought about creating a full blown game based on the SCP universe.
However, given the nature of SCP's copyright license, respect of the original creators' ownerships and especially with the addition of this letter, I have decided to cancel the whole project.
I have taken down my Etsy listing as per Izumi Kato's request and will be adding the Creative Commons license to any other posted images of my SCP-173 mini and any other SCP themed works. The other SCP minis that were created will not be brought into commercial production. Barring the unlikely chance that the SCP Wiki community would sign off on it, the SCP tabletop game will not be brought into production either. Also, it just wouldn't be worth it without SCP-173.As an apology for the aggravation, would you please contact Izumi Kato and tell them it would be my pleasure to send them a castings of this mini, along with the other SCP themed minis, before I 'retire' the molds? Also, if you could please contact the creators of SCP-131 and SCP-096 and tell them the same thing, that would be great.
It would be completely free of charge, no cost for shipping either. All I would need is their mailing addresses. I just that would hate to see these minis have to be retired before their original creators had a chance to own a copy. If you would like one too, just say so.
(Of course, I retain credit for the being the sculptor of said minis.)I apologize for the inconvenience and please send my regards to Izumi and the SCP community in general.
Sincerely,
Harrison Shackelford
Thanks for your prompt response! I'll try to get into touch with Lt Masipag and DrDan, the authors of SCP-131 and -096, respectively.
However, you are more than welcome to continue producing miniatures of their work, even without their permission, provided that you properly attribute it and license it. The issues with SCP-173 are exclusive to that article and its particular circumstances. Similarly, if you wish to create a tabletop RPG based on the SCP Foundation, that would be great! All we ask is that you observe proper licensing procedure.Thank you for your time and cooperation; if you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask!
It looks like the mini has been taken down.
SCP-173 miniature (Eskobar, 24 Dec 2014)
Someone selling an SCP-173 miniature. Because of the obvious SCP-173/Izumi Kato connection, sent a special message with the regular CC junk and an Izumi Kato warning.
Hi there. I'm Eskobar, a moderator with the SCP Foundation wiki. We saw that you had adapted our article, SCP-173, into a statuette made out of sandstone and were advertising it for sale here. There are some legal issues that we need to bring to your attention.
First of all, the article SCP-173 is licensed under a Creative Commons Share-Alike 3.0 license, the text of which is contained here. Under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, you are legally allowed to adapt and derive the content of the text of the article SCP-173 into alternative media. However, to do this, you need to include along with your derivative (presumably in the description of the item for sale) a link to the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, along with a link to the SCP Foundation wiki. This is required for distribution of the derivative, and if that were the only issue, it would be easily enough resolved.
Second of all, however, your sculpture is directly a derivative of the photograph Untitled 2004 by Keisuke Yamamoto, which itself is a photographic replica of the sculpture Untitled 2004 by Izumi Kato. The artist, Izumi Kato, has spoken with us at length about his wishes regarding the article SCP-173, and he is adamantly opposed to any commercial use or profit resulting from his sculpture or depictions thereof. We are not in any legal position to order you to cease or desist production or distribution of the statuette, but we would, in an interpersonal sense, strongly advise you not to continue to produce or advertise this particular item for sale.
Any other SCP-related media or depiction you want to work with is fine, as long as it meets the first requirement. Depictions or derivations of SCP-173 specifically, however, are not legally approved by the copyright owner of the image and depiction, Izumi Kato. The bottom of the page for SCP-173 now includes detailed author and licensing information, which may not have been there the last time you saw the page.
Thank you for your cooperation,
Eskobar
Moderator, SCP Foundation Wiki
SCP-173 poster on Redbubble (Eskobar, 9 Jan 2015)
User LawlessSquirrel on Redbubble added a poster of chibi!173 up for sale. I sent this message:
It's been four days and no reply or takedown. I sent the following follow-up message:
I intend to follow up on this in three days; if I haven't gotten a reply from him and gotten some confirmation that he's hearing me, I'm going to have to get Redbubble to take the logos down. They're pretty clear violations of Izumi Kato's wishes. I don't want to screw a content creator over if I can help it, but this is a bigger issue than that.
As I said in chat, Redbubble has been pretty good w/r/t takedowns, so that shouldn't be a problem if it comes to it. Thanks for keeping on top of this. —Drewbear
Received a reply:
Short version: Seems like a nice dude, but the 173 thing is pretty inviolable. I wish I could tell him something different, but he can't sell what he's selling at present. I think he'll take down the thing without any real hassle, but I'll keep an eye out.
I responded with "I figured as much" and that was it. I'd ideally like them to take it down, y'know, now, but no reason to be antagonistic when they get the message already. That should probably do it.
D-Class T-shirt on Redbubble (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 19 Jan 2015)
Light brought the (thankfully 173-free) works of Volsungenlied to my attention. They didn't have any attribution/licensing info so I sent them the following.
Will post more when I get a response.
RESOLVED - Creepypasta + SCP app (Eskobar, 22 Jan 2015)
On Amazon. No attribution. They have a company-wide Facebook page; I posted the following onto their Wall:
Hi there. I'm Eskobar, a moderator with the SCP Foundation wiki. We saw that you had adapted our SCP database into an app and were advertising it for free here: http://www.amazon.com/Gennaro-Daniele-Acciaro-Creepypasta-SCP/dp/B00RN7J7DO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421960951&sr=8-1&keywords=scp There are some legal issues that we need to bring to your attention.
The articles included in the SCP Foundation wiki are licensed under a Creative Commons Share-Alike 3.0 license, the text of which is contained here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, you are legally allowed to adapt and derive the content of the text of any SCP article into any alternative media form that you wish. However, to do this, you need to include along with your derivative (presumably in the description of the item for sale) a link to the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, along with a link to the SCP Foundation wiki. This is required by the CC license for anyone distributing works derived from CC-based material. Any SCP-related media or depiction you want to work with is fine, as long as it meets the first requirement.
The app looks great; we just need you to include those things in the product description to bring it up to CC compliance. Thanks for the great work! We love to see new derivatives and SCP-based work, especially from people doing it for free.
—Eskobar
Moderator, SCP Foundation wiki
Waiting on a reply. Got a reply back fairly quickly.
Hi Eskobar!
there is a section about the credits under the scp list!
have I to add something else?
I love your work and i hope in a collaboration with the SCP Foundation smile emoticon
If you want, contact me by email: moc.liamg|orannegoraicca#moc.liamg|orannegoraicca
This was accompanied by a screenshot of the credits in question, which read:
All SCP contents are derived from site http://www.scp-wiki.net, press OK to enter. This app is released under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
I replied back with:
So there absolutely is. It would be lovely if you included it directly on the Amazon purchase page in the Description, but other than that, you seem to have hit all the bases. Thanks for your cooperation!
RESOLVED (PARTIALLY) - Redbubble/Youtube- FSP Productions/Warbird (Vincent_Redgrave, 24 Jan 2015)
User FSP-Merchandise (Redbubble), Forgotten Species Productions (Youtube), and War-Bird on our site (safe to assume they're all related/the same guy) has been messaged through their redbubble account about content here and here that were improperly attributed. Message text is below-
Update: They got back to me last night, and after a couple more messages clarifying what they needed to do, said they would get to it ASAP. I'll check back in a couple days just to be sure.
e: They put acceptable, if not perfect, licensing up. It's probably the most we can ask- the video's gone down and they seem to have generally abandoned this.
"Scp-173 pillow" on Redbubble (Eskobar, 26 Jan 2015)
Another 173 design on Redbubble. I'm glad I have a boilerplate letter for this now.
For the record, I already sent a letter a while back, to which they still have yet to respond. We can issue a takedown request, as they haven't properly licensed the pillow vis-a-vis CC. I've been dragging my feet about issuing a takedown request, mostly because I hate doing it. However, if they don't respond within a week, I'll do it then unless anyone has any objections to it.
-Gaffs
With agreement from Drew, I issued a takedown notice. Not for the 173 stuff, but because they're selling stuff derived from the SCP Foundation without licensing it and have failed to respond
Licensing for Translation Sites (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 20 Mar 2015)
For the most part, the licensing for the non-English sites is Creative Commons Attributive Share-Alike 3.0, or CC-BY-SA (which is what we use). However, the Russian and Chinese wikis both use a similar but separate license (CC-BY-NC-SA, which just adds the condition that none of the work can be reused for commercial projects). Unfortunately, this isn't compatible with our license, as the Share-Alike part means that they have to use the exact same license6, not a different license.
I sent GeneR and SunnyParallax the following message:
Hello,
I want to talk with you about the licensing for your site. I notice that you have your stuff licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) agreement. Unfortunately, this agreement is not compatible with the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) agreement that the SCP Foundation uses. Because most of your content is derived from us7, you need to change your licensing to be compatible with ours by changing it to CC-BY-SA.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.
Best,
Gaffney
Talked with Sunny, who talked with one of the other Chinese admins. They changed the licensing so now it's compatible with ours. Everything is hunky-dory there. No word back from the Russians yet. I'll give a few more days, but on Saturday I'll try to contact Gene again.
Heard back from Gene (actually, last week. I didn't post it and haven't responded yet. mea culpa)
And I have to disagree with you on some parts, although I have yet to consult a lawyer on both of these.
According to the CC legal code, a translation is an Adaptation.
According to part 4.b, derived works can be published via> (iii) a Creative Commons jurisdiction license (either this or a later license version) that contains the same License Elements as this License
BY-NC-SA does contain the same elements (sharing and adapting) as BY-SA.
The "Stuff that doesn't reference SCP Foundation lore" part is trickier. No one holds the copyright to the Foundation lore, and, according to Foundation history, a lot of articles were copied to the scp-wiki from EditThis not by their authors and licensed by BY-SA. If we're to dig deeper, SCP-173 was initially published on an imageboard, probably without any licensing at all. The only reasonable way out of this situation would be declaring both of our sites Collections (as per CC license terminology). In that case,
> This Section 4(b) applies to the Adaptation as incorporated in a Collection, but this does not require the Collection apart from the Adaptation itself to be made subject to the terms of the Applicable Licensewhich means that original works may be published under a different license.
Ugh. We need a lawyer. CC license is all well, but local and international laws should override it whenever there is a conflict between the license and the law. And I do not fully understand how it all comes together.
Any thoughts are appreciated. I'm pretty sure that "the same License Elements" means "a compatible license" which CC-BY-SA-NC is not. But I need to re-read to be sure.
SlendayShop on Spreadshirt (Eskobar, 24 Mar 2015)
Currently selling an SCP sweatshirt design without attribution. Sent this bitch the bedbug letter:
[RESOLVED] Question about SCP-173 Stuff (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 28 Mar 2015)
Received this message from a user today:
Hello Gaffney,
I would like to ask you a question related to SCP-173's copyright issue. If I'm bothering the wrong guy and you'd like to redirect me to someone else, please do.Here's the issue: I'm running a Facebook SCP fan page. We translate stuff into my native language (which by the way is Italian) and generally get the SCP hype going. For the 1000 like goal, we are about to set up a contest in which the winner gets a SCP plushie. In particular, a SCP-173 plushie. The item is being built by some friends who own a page as well (they usually make community-requested plushies and sell them, but they are providing us with SCP-173 for free).
Would there be any copyright related issue if we gave away the plushie for free? Would you suggest to change the subject SCP?
Thanks for your time. Appreciate your work.
[User]
I said that since the work isn't being sold, it's in the clear.
Issue with Chinese Plagiarism (Gaffsey does not match any existing user name, 13 Apr 2015)
Got a message:
Dear Gaffney,
I hope this message doesn't disturb you.
Yesterday, I happened to read a Chinese on-web profiting novel. Its name was 无限曙光("wu xian shu guang", meaning "The Infinite Dawn"). It uses materials from the Foundation. For instance, it describe a organization which collects the anomalous items then adapting "Safe""Euclid""Keter"to classify them. Moreover, it also arranges 13 O5 in the group ( and by the love of the God, there are even three O6 in this novel).
However, the author of this book doesn't indicate any attribution. In the other word, he doesn't even MENTION the SCP. The author gave this SCP-alike group a new name:叛逆者组织 ("pan ni zhe zu zhi", means"the Rebels Organization"). Afterward, he doesn't show any license of remixing, nor declaration of changing the materials. I am shocked and dispirited. How can I imagine my favorite stories are stolen in this way! So were the other SCP fans in China.
Although I consider this book as a blatant plagiarization, I still wonder: is it against the Creative Commons license? If so, how will the site response? I hope the site attach importance to this issue.
Awaiting for your reply.
Your Sincerely
[name]external links:
http://chuangshi.qq.com/bk/kh/220104-r-57.html
It is from this chapter the author started plagiarizing. Maybe you can ask someone who knows Chinese to verify.
Checked with SunnyParallax, who confirmed the plagiarism. She also noted that the work contains stuff ripped from a variety of other popular media. Finally, she noted that she found a way to contact him via a possibly-still-in-use social media account and offered to pass along an official statement from us.
I'm going to try to write it up ASAP.
I don't recall offhand which CC license the Chinese site is using and whether THEIR original material allows commercial adaptations. But in either case, all the licenses that the SCP sites use require attribution. Lemme see your draft before you pass it on to Sunny, but also be prepared to draft takedown letters to this person's webhost if necessary. —Drewbear
They formerly used CC-BY-SA-NC (non-commercial), but I talked to them about it, as I am of the opinion that that license is not compatible with the CC-BY-SA license we use. (more on that here). So if they weren't blatantly lifting from SCP stuff and failing to attribute it, they could sell it all the live-long day. But yeah, I'll try to get in a draft soon and I'll send it to you.
Facebook stuffs (Vincent_Redgrave, 13 Apr 2015)
Recently a user messaged the FB page about their desire to make SCP Plushies to sell online, with their first proof of concept being one of 173. I gave them the standard spiel about how selling 173 dolls would go against our agreement with IK. I then suggested other skips that would be less problematic for them to design sellable dolls around, so long as they follow the licensing guidelines which I linked to them, and offered our inboxes up if they had any more questions. Feel free to ask me or anyone else on the FB team for more details, and I'm trying to get the user's site username so that we can put a 'face' to the person without violating their privacy.
Yeah, 173 is a no-go for sale. Ask them to check with us about the others, too. The Image Team is doing a great job scrubbing non-CC pics from the site, but they haven't got everything yet, and better to be safe than sorry. —Drewbear
Licensing Team Accounts (Riemann, 14 Apr 2015)
Upon discussion, we're making some "official" licensing accounts for various sites, for ease of use.
moc.liamg|gnisneciLPCS#moc.liamg|gnisneciLPCS is the email everything is tied to.
redbubble: SCPLicensing
etsy: SCPLicensing
Deviant Art: SCPLicensing
Roblox: SCPLicensing, password is standard + licensing chat number
Wikia: SCPLicensing
Wattpad: SCP_Licensing
More to come if necessary. Let's try to use these more often?
Ask Vince, Gaffsey or Procyonlotor for password if needed.
RESOLVED - NN5N iTunes app (Eskobar, 14 Apr 2015)
Someone pointed out that an app being sold on iTunes was using an image of SCP-173 to promote itself for commercial purposes. I used the handy dandy SCPLicensing email account and hooked Mr. Radzievskyi up with some premium fucking comprehension of licensing issues. For free. The first hit is always free.
Edit (4/15/20150): User responded.
He seems happy to help and is now waiting on Apple to approve the updates.
-Riemann
e: Appears to be all in line. There's an issue with itunes in general, but that's out of the scope of this issue. Marking as resolved.
Wattpad 173 Repost (Rejekyll, 22 Apr 2015)
This is the text of SCP-173, reposted on Wattpad by someone named SinisterMind. I sent the following PM:
Hi! I'm a staff member on the SCP Wiki by the name of Reject. I saw that you reposted SCP-173 here on Wattpad. That's fine, but because the SCP Wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons Share-Alike 3.0 license, the text of which is contained here (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode), you need to link the SCP Wiki (http://www.scp-wiki.net/) for proper attribution. Once you do that you'll be fine. You don't need to take anything down.
Derivatives of works under the Creative Commons Share-Alike 3.0 license also inherit the license, so your post of SCP-173 is under it as well. That doesn't mean anything to you except that you need to link the SCP Wiki. And we have a guide (http://www.scp-wiki.net/licensing-guide) that you can read at your leisure. Effectively, this doesn't change anything.
Cheers!
Response:
Oh! I'm so sorry! I didn't realise! I apologise
But nothing appeared to have changed, so I said,
That's fine, you're far from the first person to accidentally forget to link us back. I don't see where you put the attribution; have you done that yet? You need to link SCP-173's wiki page and put a statement about the license.
Here's a model statement: "This work is released under a Creative Commons 3.0 By Attribution, Share-Alike license, and is based on the SCP Foundation Wiki at scp.wiki.net/scp-173."
173 Youtbe Reading (Rejekyll, 26 Apr 2015)
Devereaux pointed out in chat that this video has a link back to the site but nothing about the license. I sent the uploader the following.
Hi, I'm a staff member on the SCP Wiki. My username there is Reject. I'm messaging you to let you know that since the wiki uses a license called Creative Commons 3.0 Share-Alike, which requires that your video inherit it too. You already have a link back to the site, which is great. Please add a statement about the license and you'll be set!
Here's a model statement: "This work is released under a Creative Commons 3.0 By Attribution, Share-Alike license, and is based on the SCP Foundation Wiki at scp.wiki.net."
Cheers!
[Resolved] Gamejolt Game (Riemann, 26 Apr 2015)
http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/scp-classified-projects/43026/ This was pointed out to me. Fairly popular, no attribution.
Anyone want to volunteer? Or at least teach me how to do?
Sent the game creator an email with our standard C&D message. Got a response pretty quickly. He was a little bit confused about what he needed to do, but seems to be willing to comply with our licensing requirements. Sent him a reply clarifying the parts he was confused about, and am currently waiting for a response from him. Will update further as the situation progresses.
Update: Got a response from him saying that he'll add the proper attribution and licensing "as soon as possible". Will monitor the game page(s) over the next few days to make sure he does so.
Another Update: Proper licensing and attribution have been added to the game's download pages. Marking this one as resolved.
SCP-173 twerking, for those of you who didn't know we needed this in the world (Eskobar, 28 Apr 2015)
Here and, god help us all, here are two products on an art merch production hosting site called "society6". I can't contact either person on this site because you need a "verified" account to post comments, and that's the only way to establish any sort of contact with the content creators about their works, and you can't "verify" your account without a paypal and $1, and I can't even get my paypal to work. So if you happen to be able to make this process any smoother, the message I had all typed out and ready to go for either of those works is:
Hi, I'm Eskobar, a moderator for the SCP Foundation wiki. I can't find any other way to attach this to this product, but there's an issue with the copyright situation here. As we now have clarified on SCP-173's page itself (http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-173), the SCP Foundation wiki holds no copyright control whatsoever over the statue depicted in the image on that page, and the creator of the statue, Izumi Kato, has explicitly asked that we not use any depiction of the statue for commercial purposes, nor that we allow others to do so. While other SCP images and depictions are covered under Creative Commons and therefore can be worked around through that licence, we must ask that you not sell any artwork depicting SCP-173 specifically.
Thank you,
Eskobar
Moderator, SCP Foundation wiki
You can just copy-paste that right into a comment box if you can manage to get access to one. You can even put your own name and rank in there if you really wanna hatefuck my heart to death.