Scpnft

The SCP Foundation and NFTs

Yes, that is the title, so if this kind of discussion really burns your onions, perhaps be cautious moving forward.

I’m CityToast, a member of the SCP Wiki Licensing Team. I am a certified Creative Commons Educator, a tech investor, business owner, and writer. I am deeply-involved in open-source advocacy, copyleft, and intellectual property law reform. This statement is being written on behalf of the Licensing Team of the SCP Wiki and, by extension, the Wiki Staff.

In the past year or so, the rise of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) has become a buzzword among tech futurists, cryptocurrency communities, and general controversial discussions. NFT integration with companies have become uncomfortably common.

NFTs are at the center of significant controversy today, including concerns about the environment¹, the exploitation of artist rights², and the high potential for fraudulent transactions³, money laundering⁴ among other concerns.

The Creative Commons Foundation has gone back and forth on the subject of NFTs related to Creative Commons content. They have offered some opinions regarding the treatment of NFTs in relation to Creative Commons works⁵, which, along with educational documentation created by Creative Commons on the subject, was seen by some as a tacit approval of NFTs within the sphere of Creative Commons Content. However, the concerns addressed in that article relate to content owned wholly by the creator of the Creative Commons content.

In relation to Share-Alike projects like the SCP Wiki, NFTs are incredibly controversial. On Wikipedia, for example, the subject of NFTs and Blockchain technology is under the rarely-used General Sanctions after significant discussion by the members and administrators of the site, including sitting board members of the Wikimedia Foundation⁶. Ultimately, the legal remifications of NFTs remain unexplored with few exceptions⁷, and different communities have differing opinions on the interoperability of Creative Commons content and NFTs in general.

At the SCP Wiki, the licensing team has had many discussions regarding NFTs in the context of SCP Foundation-related content. It is not an incredible stretch of logic to say that the majority of people in the SCP community are opposed to NFTs, as evidenced by, for example, the outright ban on NFT-related discussion in a major SCP discussion Discord server. It makes sense: The SCP community is by and large filled with creators, and NFTs have historically proven harmful to a majority of creators, with even NFT curators like OpenSea engaging in exploitative tactics⁸.

Ultimately, the Staff of the SCP Wiki hold the strong opinion that NFTs of SCP content do not represent the values of open source and collaborative projects like ours, and do not adhere to the spirit of the Creative Commons Share-Alike 3.0 license. There are not, and never will be, any official SCP NFTs, and want to be clear that any NFTs of SCP content are not supported by the SCP Wiki staff.

At the SCP Wiki we hope to continue to promote open-source, collaborative content, and encourage content creators who contribute to our vibrant community.

Yours,

Sam "CityToast" Swicegood

Footnotes

1. Krause, Max; Tolaymat, Thabet (2018). "Quantification of energy and carbon costs for mining cryptocurrencies". Nature Sustainability. 1:814. Retrieved January 27, 2022.

2. Kwan, Jacklin (July 28, 2021). "An artist died. Then thieves made NFTs of her work". Wired. Retrieved January 27, 2022.

3. Schneider, Tim (April 21, 2021). "The Gray Market: How a Brazen Hack of That $69 Million Beeple Revealed the True Vulnerability of the NFT Market (and Other Insights)". artnet news. Retrieved January 27, 2022.

4. Owen, Allison; Chase, Isabella (December 2, 2021). "NFTs: A New Frontier for Money Laundering?". Royal United Services Institute. Retrieved January 16, 2022.

5. Stihler, Catherine (May 4, 2021). "At the Intersection of NFTs and Creative Commons Licenses". Creative Commons Foundation. Retrieved January 27, 2022.

6. Wikipedia contributors. "Wikipedia:General sanctions/Blockchain and cryptocurrencies" .Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 27, 2022.

7. "Hermès suing American artist over NFTs inspired by its Birkin bags". Agence France-Presse. Retrieved January 26, 2022.

8. "OpenSea admits insider trading of NFTs it promoted". BBC News. September 16, 2021. Retrieved January 27, 2022.

Additional Reading

1. Gallersdorfer, Ulrich; Klassen, Lena; Stoll, Christian (2020). "Energy Consumption of Cryptocurrencies Beyond Bitcoin". Joule. 4 (9): 1843–1846. Retrieved January 27, 2022.
2. "The Origin of Value: The Greater Fools Theory : The Indicator from Planet Money". NPR.org. Retrieved January 26, 2022.
3. "New Study: NFT Prices Are Manipulated by Few with Wash Trades (Artificial Demand)". Moguldom. December 6, 2021. Retrieved January 16, 2022.
4. Wilson, Kathleen Bridget; Karg, Adam; Ghaderi, Hadi (October 2021). "Prospecting non-fungible tokens in the digital economy: Stakeholders and ecosystem, risk and opportunity". Business Horizons: S0007681321002019.