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Russian Copyright Law & SCP

Updated: Nov 19




Russian Copyright Law: SCP Breach 


Secure. Contain. Protect. These are the words behind the popular internet forum SCP Foundation an online community comprised of a fictional shared universe in which monsters or anomalies called “SCP’s” are recorded in a database for users to examine. Think X-files or Creepypastas. Similar to fanfiction websites such as Wattpad or AO3 the SCP Foundation is a place where users can upload art, and stories and add SCPs to the ever-growing archive of creatures. When you look at the website it looks like a typical archive. SCPs are numbered and divided based on whichever current “series” the wiki has online. The SCP universe itself has inspired many fan-made works such as multiple video game adaptations, several short films, comics, novels and even an Irish stage play called Welcome to the Ethics Committee. The SCP archives have also been translated into over 15 languages entirely by online volunteers and users within on-site monitoring stories and works of users (Wikidot, 2023). The community has grown to encompass many different websites such as the Russian RU-Hub SCP International. 


The SCP website and wiki fall under a Creative Commons license, this means that original sources and creators must be attributed if their works are used elsewhere. Anyone can read, write and add stories to its database. This makes the subject of “copyright” on this forum overly complex as many users and writers use this website to publish stories. One important thing to remember is that the SCP Forum itself is not owned by a single person or business. As stated in week 11’s reading Copyright and Publishing: Symbiosis in the Digital Environment “the digital environment offers an unprecedented opportunity to develop new material using existing matter. In this sense, the ability to create works lies within the grasp of more people than ever before” (Sundara, 2019). 


This online community falls under the Creative Commons License the SCP Foundation uses a specific license, which has two key components: attribution and share-alike (Licensing Guide). “Since the SCP Foundation is a creative-writing project, the authors who contribute to the website each obtain a copyright to their own work. However, the SCP Foundation utilizes a Creative Commons license to allow subsequent creators to develop works from the stories on the website with greater creativity and flexibility” (Reagan, 2022). Users can adapt or revise other members' works but do so always referencing back to the SCP Foundation and its original creators. This is the concept of intellectual property and the shows the lack of protection it holds when works are published via the Internet. 


The common understanding among most users of this wiki is that the website itself falls under CC-BY-SA 3.0. However, none of the characters, logos or other assets are trademarked by the SCP Foundation. After all this started as a small forum similar to those seen on Reddit, no one was the owner and everyone had the potential to contribute anything to the imaginary archives. “The community was very green and simply didn't have the resources to even hold a proper forum. What attracted me back then was the feeling like you were sitting around a campfire telling others scary stories. These stories were weird, interesting and most importantly felt like they were part of a large communal universe created by us for us.” (An Interview With ‘The Administrator’, 2021). In North America, the copyright law is different from that in Russia and East Asia and as a result, this loophole makes it easy for people on an international scale to obtain “legal copyright” over other works. 


In 2019 Andrey Duksin a Russian citizen, discovered this legal loophole and was able to trademark the name and logo for the SCP Foundation within Russia and East Asia through a process administered by Russia’s Federal Service for Intellectual Property. Duksin filed for a trademark over the SCP under the guise of selling merchandise. Though in Russia he is legally allowed to do so due to the trademark Duskin threatened to shut down the official Russian website of the SCP Foundation. Demanding that he be made an administrator of the website and suing individuals who used the SCP logo, Russian stories and equivalent works. “Duskin used his trademark to suppress and shutter the legitimate Russian branch of the SCP Foundation. The main site could do little to nothing about the matter since Duskin's legal foothold gives him an air of legitimacy in Russia.” (Gramuglia, 2020). As a result, many online creators rallied together to start a fundraising campaign against Duksin to take him to court over the trademark. This is because in Russia the Creative Commons License that the SCP Foundation holds is not recognized or compatible with Russian law. 


The Duksin v SCP Foundation conflict involves two major types of intellectual property law; copyright and trademark. Copyright in this case involves the North American Creative Commons license and the Russian Federation copyright law. Though the SCP writings and stories are protected under the North American CC law in Russia, Duksin has the legal right to remove and take down these entries. Copyright law protects literary works, images, and sound recordings, as well as fan-made works by other creators. However, a copyright for a derivative work such as the SCP extends only to protect the new material and does not provide a copyright owner rights to the preexisting material. In this case, you could write a short story about a creature from the SCP and that is your intellectual property but you do not have ownership over the rest of the SCP forums or stories. Trademark law is different from copyright. Trademark is often associated with a brand image or a product. Trademark does not allow for the alteration or editing by the public on that trademark. 


What makes a case like this so scary for those using the forum and its authors is that if Duksin wins this case he has the potential to trademark the North American and various translated websites under SCP as well. “The prospective legal battle over the SCP trademark could also lead to further division over the Creative Commons copyright license as a concept. If anyone can just register a trademark and then own what isn't theirs by default, what's stopping them from doing that to any other work in the Creative Commons?” (Gramuglia, 2020). This is a complicated and sad case of an online community that grew well beyond what could ever be imagined. As a result, they were taken advantage of because they could not protect their license once it had reached an international scale. “A clear solution to avoiding the problems caused by the mutant copyleft is to simply prevent the overlap from happening. However, to achieve this solution, there would likely need to be copyright reform.” (Reagan, 2021). 


The case has come to a standstill due to the current political climate within Russia. The last that was heard though the courts agreed Duksin was in the wrong “If courts protect the copyright interest over the trademark interest, they run the risk of public confusion. This also presents the risk of permissively licensed copyright holders still needing to litigate to protect their work.” (Reagan, 2021). If legal problems like this can arise from a small internet community there is no telling what may happen to other websites and forums that fall under Creative Commons. Currently, within the publishing industry concepts like copyright and fair use are under extreme changes regarding the legality of things like open access, printing and international law. The excelling progress of not only AI but also the lack of protection over an author's works places the publishing industry at risk balancing both law and moral rights.  As the internet continues to grow and develop, loopholes like this one become more apparent and place users at risk of having their intellectual property stolen or worse –trademarked. 


References


“An Interview With ‘The Administrator.’” SCP Foundation


Gramuglia, Anthony. “SCP: The Largest Online Shared Universe Is under Legal Attack.” CBR


“Licensing Guide.” SCP Foundation


Reagan Joy, The Tragedy of the Creative Commons: An Analysis of How Overlapping 

Intellectual Property Rights Undermine the Use of Permissive Licensing, 72 Case W. Rsrv. L. Rev. 977 (2022), https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/caselrev/vol72/iss4/5 


Sundara Rajan, Mira T., 'Copyright and Publishing: Symbiosis in the Digital Environment', in 

Angus Phillips, and Michael Bhaskar (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Publishing, Oxford 

Handbooks (2019; online edn, Oxford Academic, 9 May 2019), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198794202.013.1, accessed 15 Nov. 2023.


Wikidot. “SCP Foundation.” Main - SCP Foundation, scp-wiki.wikidot.com/. Accessed 15 Nov. 

2023. 



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