Disclaimer: Bloody-Disgusting.com operates two shows under the Creative Commons 3.0 license. I act as the Showrunner on our show, SCP Archives, which uses many of the articles and tales from the SCP Wiki.
SCP stands for Secure, Contain, Protect. It’s also a worldwide collaborative fiction project, where anyone is free to create their story within the universe and upload it to the SCP-Wiki. Think of it like Wikipedia, but for monsters. Everything is written in a government-like dossier, with blacked-out text, gruesome photos, and sometimes even audio logs from expeditions into other worlds! There’s one catch though, everything on the SCP wiki is under the Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0 (CC-BY-SA3.0) license. That means once you’ve published it to the site, anyone else can take your idea and expand upon it, sell merch of it, or even make a movie- But they must attribute the original author, and whatever work they make must also be released under the CC-BY-SA3.0 liscense.
Six months ago it came to light that a Russian man, Andrey Duksin, took advantage of the trademark standards of the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property and trademarked the SCP Foundation name and logo within the Russian Federation and Eurasian Customs Union. Duksin defended this action, stating “[He is] putting a lot of money into promoting the universe and creating media content (arts, books, tabletop games, etc), I had to make sure no one shifty enough jumps in and profits on the PR I’m making. ‘Cause in that case I’m losing the resource to get my own investments back.” Duksin goes on to claim that “This doesn’t matter for the community at all, because I’ve always supported the community’s decisions…”
Duksin revealed he was the trademark owner after a fan run merch store was kicked off of the Russian social media website, VK. Fans had posted onto a VK group about a link to the shop being blocked, Duksin writes “As far as I can see, 20+ people sent their money, at least 30000 rubles [~$500] as preliminary payment for their merch boxes,” and pushes for customers to file a police report for fraud. Later, Duksin reveals that a year ago he paid 100,000 rubles (~$1400) to register the SCP Foundation trademark, and had “… contacted those guys and offered to coordinate our actions. They told me to fuck off. In turn, I contacted vk.com admins and kicked that group outta vk.”
Later, Duksin would openly admit to the SCPRU (Russian division of the SCP fandom) admins that he secured the trademark to pursue big-budget films and video games. Around the same time, other fans who managed SCP based VK groups shared their interactions with Duksin, you can read their transcripts (or view screenshots from VK) here.
This brings us to today.
Duksin is now threatening to shut down the SCP-RU website. For the last six months US and Russian SCP admins have tried to negotiate and work with Rospatent to dissolve the illegitimate trademark to no avail. This has to lead the US admin team to seek legal action, and they require help.
You can support the SCP fandom by spreading the message with #StandWithSCPRU or by donating to the legal fund.
