Writing About Dune Before I Get Sued

I have a couple stories in the works right now, but I figured until I'm done with those I would post a little something to entertain you guys. Now, to be fair, I originally saw this on TikTok, but the more I looked into it, the funnier it got. And if you don't care about background, I would skip down to point #2, because that's where things get really funny.  

Around 1975, about 2 decades after Frank Herbert wrote his sci-fi novel Dune, Alejandro Jodorowsky wrote a colossal attempt of a movie adaptation. This infamous script would have boasted a massive budget, with names being mentioned like Pink Floyd, Mick Jagger, and Salvador Dali. This project is well known as "the most famous movie that was never made". An absolute titan of work, there are 10 original copies of this storyboard. Note that these are copies about the making of this proposed film, filled with story ideas, concept art, dialogue, and much more in English and in French. This is not the original book, Dune, it is a copy of the idea for the original movie based off of Dune. A group called Spice DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) came together to buy this fairly rare piece from an auction at Christie's Auction House and I do congratulate them on this! This DAO came together and pooled all their money to buy this piece of art really, because they wanted it. That is a great feat and it's a nice thing to see strangers on the internet come together with a shared goal and even better to see them achieve it. But as nice as it is, in this case it was just plain stupid.

I mean, where do I even begin? I could start with the proposed "vision" that this DAO had for the project. Or maybe I could kick things of with their weird plans for the physical copy for the purchased work. Hell, even better might actually be talking about what they thought was in their future from their own show to a proposed NFT goldmine.

I think that this story, is best told brief. You don't need to know what a DAO is, you don't need to know the ins and outs of Spice DAO's management model, business idea, revenue, any of that nonsense that I normally try and go in depth with. This is all you need to know.

A group of cryptocurrency enthusiasts and owners pooled money together and won the aforementioned copy of Dune for an estimated $3,000,000 quite recently. Already, this is way WAY over the estimated worth of this work, which is in actuality maybe $30,000. Having bought this, the DAO tweeted out their plans for the future. They claimed to be on the road to accomplishing three goals:

1. They were going to make the book public. How? By making it into an NFT. Somehow they were going to turn this work into the thing that is touted as being the symbol for private ownership and have it be public. Would this mean public only to people part of the DAO? Because that is still a private resource. Would you have to pay a fee to view the NFT? Because that's just a library membership which you can do now. This is even more silly because most of this book is public. If you go here you can see maybe not all, but a sizable chunk of the concept art and scene breakdowns for absolutely free. And not to worry, that is completely legal. Lest we not forgot that Dune the actual book by Frank Herbert is also available to the public. As in anyone is welcome to find a copy either in a store, online, their local library, etc. and read it. And as if anyone needs a reminder, the movie version of  Dune, no sorry, the MULTIPLE movie versions are also available to the public. No one is struggling to find a place to read/watch the plot of this damn story. 
2. Produce an original animated series and then sell that series to a streaming  service. This is the juicy bit in my humble opinion. We have to remember, we're dealing with a bunch of folks who planned to turn this into an NFT. And for some reason, there is some confusion in the NFT/crypto sphere about how copyright and licensing works. There is a notion that owning the NFT means not only owning the image, but also the rights that come along with it such as using it commercially to make a profit. This is only the case if the original artist has given that permission along with the sale of the NFT; much like any other creative work. I can by drawing off of Fiverr for a few bucks, but there will always be that disclaimer informing me whether I can or cannot use that image commercially. The same goes for NFTs; owning it doesn't mean you own the rights to it. But, this concept is for some reason often over looked. And I think that this DAO of NFT nerds simply forgot about copyright laws here as well. Owning a copy of a script based off a book does not give you the rights to use that book or its contents freely. Hell, you cant even use the concept art freely. You bought a book, so you own that physical copy. You do not own the creative rights behind it, the ideas behind it, or the vision behind it. The gall of these idiots to think that just because they paid a lot of money for an object they now own it and everything surrounding it is appalling. 
3. And finally, they were going to support derivative community projects, which I am sure Denis Villeneuve will be happy to hear. What Spice DAO actually means, I haven't the foggiest idea. Who is the community being supported? Anyone with an idea or just those that hold membership within Spice DAO? And how exactly would they be supported I haven't the foggiest idea, because they could just mean moral support instead of financial support.

Besides this, I don't really have much to say. Nothing wrong or immoral happened here, so no one should really be mad. I know I'm not. All I'll say is that I am annoyed at the gall of these crypto hounds who think that flashing some cash gives them everything. They really thought they were on top of the world just because they bought a copy of a book for 100x the price. What a bunch of clowns.

Anyway, stay tuned for some bigger posts coming up, I look forward to sharing some cool projects with all of you!