A24 is making an SCP Foundation movie. That’s news to the SCP Foundation.

After the box office successes of Iron Lung, Backrooms, and Obsession, Hollywood is hoping it can cash in with creator-led horror films and internet-first horror IPs.

The latest deal in this vein was announced in a Deadline

exclusive Sept. 11. A24, it reported, will partner with Spooky Pictures and Image Nation Studios to release a film adaptation of the beloved long-running community storytelling project SCP Foundation.

There’s just one problem.

No one from the SCP Foundation is involved.

Shortly after Deadline‘s story went live, the writers and staff who run the official SCP Foundation wiki released a statement saying they “were not consulted or contacted regarding this film.”

“We have been attempting to contact the filmmakers but haven’t yet been successful,” they added. “To be clear: we have not had any communication with the filmmakers, producers, or distributors for this project, despite our best efforts, and to the best of our knowledge they have not made any efforts to contact us.”

They went on to explain that “A24 does not and cannot have any exclusive rights to anything related to the SCP Foundation, including any films that Spooky Pictures or anyone else may choose to create.”

See, the issue is licensing. The SCP Foundation project started way back in 2007, on 4chan’s x/paranormal forum. The very first post, from user Moto42, contained a photo of a real sculpture by Izumi Katō along with a fictional written “file” that referred to the sculpture as “SCP-173,” detailing how it’s immobile while being watched, but when unobserved, will move rapidly and with homicidal intent.

Other users, inspired by the SCP-173 story, began making up their own SCPs and contributing lore to the Foundation’s overall universe. In 2008, all of this community-created content was logged on a Wikidot wiki, a type of website that comes standard with a CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

In case you’re not familiar with CC BY-SA 3.0, a project with that license allows anyone to add their own material to it, and also allows anyone to distribute material that other people added to it–even on a commercial basis.

The catch is that anytime someone distributes something to do with the project, whether it’s their original SCP-themed material or someone else’s material, that distribution must also be licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

So, basically, A24, Spooky Pictures, and Image Nation Studios are welcome to make an SCP Foundation movie. They’re welcome to put it in theaters and charge people to see it.

But they would not be allowed to claim any kind of exclusive ownership/copyright over it, and would not be able to gatekeep its distribution or usage. As the SCP Foundation writers explain, “Just as anyone who follows the license can redistribute and create derivative works based on the SCP Foundation articles on our wiki, anyone will be able to do the same with their film. For example, anyone could upload a copy to YouTube; similarly, any commercial streaming service would be free to stream the film without payment to anyone.”

The writers added that they “would expect to see the film on YouTube on its [theater] premiere date (if not before!).”

It is, of course, vastly unlikely that A24 (or any other legacy studio) would agree to those terms. In fact, the writers specifically say those terms have prevented other SCP films from being made “despite prior interest.”

“We’d love to sit down with A24, Spooky Pictures, and other involved parties to discuss options for how they could make and distribute a film while complying with CC BY-SA,” they said. “We chose to release our project under a Creative Commons license to allow fans to tell their own stories as well as adapt ours. We chose the ShareAlike license to ensure that everyone who enjoyed those fan works would have the same rights as the people who created them. We hope that the filmmakers will follow their legal obligations under our license.”

It’s still not clear what A24’s greenlight process looked like here, and A24 has yet to respond to the SCP Foundation writers and staff’s concerns. Deadline reported that the SCP film will be part of the ongoing V/H/S horror anthology film series.

Roy Lee and Steven Schneider, co-founders of Image Nation Studios and Spooky Pictures, made it clear they’re chasing fandom dollars.

“Internet lore is quickly rising as a compelling source of new stories for the horror genre, bringing with it built-in, highly devoted audiences. As fans increasingly seek out fresh scares, we’re focused on tapping into the most compelling online worlds in which talent already live, such as the vast SCP universe, and helping them make the leap to the big screen,” they said in a shared statement.

However it shakes out, this situation is a reminder that just because Hollywood’s rushing our industry with pans at the ready, gold isn’t free for the taking.