 Ahoy, ahoy, and welcome to the channel. I'm Dr. Sumerian, and oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, it's happening, it's happening, it's finally happening. SCP-173's image is finally being taken down. Let's talk about that. So about two days ago, somebody on my server alerted me to the existence of a thread on the O5 command forums, which was essentially beginning the process of taking down SCP-173's image. Now, SCP-173 for the six people who maybe don't know, is the original SCP article. It's the one that was posted up on 4chan, and then eventually made its way over to the wiki. It's the original. All other works essentially sourced from it. So what we're dealing with here is sort of a titanic shift in the history of the SCP wiki, but a necessary one. Now, the, hmm, that's the best way to put this. The image's policy on the SCP wiki requires that every image posted be Creative Commons compliant, that it's compliant with the site's license. And over the last fourish, is it fourish? I think it might be fourish years, maybe a little bit less, maybe like three. But over the last three to four years, there's been a policy in place that I originated, but we'll talk a little bit about why that doesn't really matter anymore, that I originated, where the articles, there was basically a process for taking stuff down, but we never really got around to the idea of what we call legacy images, stuff that was posted before the policy was put into place. And I say, part of that doesn't really matter, because I instituted the policy and then completely disappeared, well, didn't disappear, I resigned from staff, and then left all of the really hard, really extensive work to other people to complete. So I don't really think I should get very much credit for that, but I did institute the original policies, and so this is something that I've been waiting for for quite some time to actually be completed. This is the last of the legacy images. So our policy is any new posts, they have to be Creative Commons, but the old stuff that was posted before the policy was implemented was sort of being dealt with one by one by one. SCP 173 is the last image on the SCP Wiki that is not Creative Commons compliant, I should say, the last old image that you could still post something today that isn't Creative Commons compliant, it'll just get taken down very shortly after. So this is the last legacy image, this is it. Once we do this, that's it, the SCP Wiki is completely Creative Commons compliant, and if they ever decide to go to their own website, then they don't have to worry about the legal implications of having non-Creative Commons images on there, and that's actually super important. We're not going to go into why that's super important, but it is super important that, like I said, if they go to their own website, that they run, own, pay for, and all these other things, and they allow, knowing that they're not Creative Commons, they allow images on their website, that's a problem, and then they don't have a process to get rid of them, which they do now. It's great. I'm actually quite happy about this. I've been wanting to see the SCP Wiki go completely Creative Commons for a really long time, and they're finally getting there, and let's talk a little bit though, because this is important to people, not just the process or the reasons why it's good, but the more personal nature of SCP 173 for a lot of people, and even for people who maybe think that SCP 173 is a poorly written article, which it is, but it doesn't matter because that's not the point of it. It's not supposed to be great art. It has inspired some great art. I think one could say without being too pretentious about it, not everything on the SCP Wiki is amazing, but some of it's very, very good, and it was inspired by SCP 173, so we got to give it that credit. The original image, untitled 2004, was created by Izumi Kato, who was not given any sort of notice or information that this was, his stolen image was being used, and didn't really find out about it until it started becoming particularly popular. Now, a lot of people in their minds, especially since a lot of us are creators or want-to-be creators, would think themselves that the only thing that matters is exposure. The more people that see your stuff, the better, right? But that's not the driving fundamental creative force for a lot of people. For some people, it's just that their vision is communicated properly. And while I'm not necessarily disagree with that from a personal standpoint, that doesn't mean I don't respect it in other people and their goals in creating art. So just because I've seen this already, he should be, and this is in the past, this is today, he should be happy that we are allowing it on the website to show to so many people. He should be happy that his art is being shown to everybody, despite the fact that he didn't want it. He very begrudgingly allowed it on the SCP Wiki. Let's be clear about that. While he did accede to the SCP Wiki using it, and under very restrictive circumstances, it was a very, it was a begrudging allowance. Mainly on the sense of, there's this, hey guy, there's this whole community that sprung up around your image has nothing to do with the art that you created. Uh, can you please let us keep using it? And the guy's like, I guess, just don't sell it. And a few other things. And that's not what you want. You don't want to be guilting people into allowing you to use their content. A yes is not, you want enthusiastic consent if we're going to use the right terminology for it. You don't just want, yeah, I guess, you want, yes, I'm very excited to see this be this way. And that's not what we had. We haven't had it from the beginning. We didn't have any consent at the beginning for using the image. And then we had what was basically, I mean, I don't want to destroy your stuff. I guess keep using it. And that's not respectful to the original creator, right? If we think of SCP 173 as this fundamentally important, if you really think it's irreplaceable, that's actually sort of an argument for replacing it or getting rid of it. We'll talk more about the lack of replacement in a second. It's actually sort of that because what you're saying is, really, is that you have gotten so much use out of this image. It is so important to you that you think, forget everybody else in the world. Only what I want matters. It's very important to me and I'd like to keep it. What you should be thinking is, is thank you, Azumi Kato, for letting us use it for as long as you have. That's what you should be saying. And we're going to be more responsible and more moral and more ethical in the future with regards to our images. And that starts by giving him back his art, which is what we've done, hope, or we're going to do. There's really only a discussion going on right now. It's probably going to go in the right way, but you never know with these things. The original author of SCP-173, the article, has asked that the image not be replaced. And to that end, it seems very unlikely that it will be replaced. There's some people that have just been like, eh, screw what the author wants. We'll do what we like. But of course, that's the exact same attitude that got us into this problem in the first place. So that seems kind of silly to me. And there is going to be a couple of weeks before they even get around to voting on it. And when they vote on it, then they'll take it down. It's not going to be replaced. There is some talk about a possibility as of creating an SCP-173 gallery to allow for other interpretations of SCP-173. And that'd be fun. But at its core, this is the right thing to do. And this is well, well, well past the right time to do it. If you have any opinions on what you think should be done with the SCP-173 now, let me know in the comments down below. I know a lot of people will be talking about the possibility of a gallery. Or I'm sure plenty of people will be like, leave it up. This guy should be appreciative that we put it on our website and made his stuff so popular. But, you know, whatever. It makes me so angry. I saw that. I saw somebody actually saying that on a Facebook group recently and be like, oh my goodness. It's like rocket at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy. What if I steal something? That's theft. You can't do that. No, no, no. What if I want it more than the guy that has it? Well, it's still theft. No, no, no. I don't think you understand, sir. What if I want it more? It doesn't change anything. Just because you want it more doesn't mean it's your property all of a sudden. But yeah, that's the end of the video. I just, I'm in a pretty good mood over this. But thank you very much for watching. If you enjoyed the video, hit the subscribe button and then hit the notification bell. And then head on over to patreon.com. I actually lost our $50 patron, MC Cashmull, who is, I would like to say thank you very much for pledging for as long as you have. That was really cool of you. And I know everybody's got their own reasons for why they can and can't pledge. And I completely and totally respect that. But I thought it was worth saying thank you to MC Cashmull. And I think anytime I get one of those big patron backers, I should probably thank them when they come in and I should probably thank them when they leave. Yeah. And Synderiki, who's pledged $100. So I don't think I've thanked him enough, but I'll say it again. But everybody else here on the screen, you could join with them at $1, $5, $10. There's a $1 tier. Just doesn't show up in the little table here. But it's nice to know that I'm not alone out here. And I will see you all again on Thursday. Took me a second to remember the day.