Uh, no, it’s not a copy of the novel “Dune,” it’s a copy of Jodorowsky’s film treatment (concept art and notes) for his proposed movie version of Dune. (They made various copies for people involved in the project at the time, of which perhaps a dozen might still exist.)
Which makes it even more useless than just a copy of the novel, as there’s extra copyrights involved beyond just the one for the Dune story itself, and the idea of selling or adapting it doubly absurd - it’s not the current book owners’ original film treatment. It’s not like they could pitch someone else’s film treatment, even if they did have the story rights.
Well, in this case they own a book copy. With NFTs, they “own” a ledger entry that’s associated with an image, usually. (And their mistaken notions about what they get for their money are the same in each case, apparently.) Although yes, the concepts of “ownership” and “thing owned” are absolutely getting a real stretching here…
Which is not a rare book. It is one of the most famous SciFi novels ever and most second hand bookshops will have it, often a shelf for the whole series. It is also still in print so there are warehouses with whole stacks of it.
It is not a rare book, but there are rare copies of that book.
To be clear, what they bought is not a copy of the novel Dune in any form. It is the pitch book that was made for the film adaptation of Dune by Jodorowsky. So it includes a bunch of (reproduced) artwork by Mobius, Foss, and Giger, storyboards, script and story notes, stuff like that. It does not include the full text of the novel. 20 copies of it exist and one sold in 2019 for around 35k
That Buzzfeed article is a good read, thanks for the link.
And I must confess that I like this one quote by one of the guys behind the purchase: “Dude,” Saqib said, “imagine if a generation of kids had grown up on Jodorowsky’s Dune instead of fucking ‘Star Wars.’ ”
According to the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, Star Wars was one of the films influenced by the concept art from Jodorowsky’s project.
The film notes that Jodorowsky’s script, extensive storyboards, and concept art were sent to all major film studios, and argues that these influenced and inspired later film productions, including Star Wars, the Alien series, Flash Gordon, the Terminator series, and The Fifth Element.[5][7] In particular, the Jodorowsky-assembled team of O’Bannon, Foss, Giger, and Giraud went on to collaborate on the 1979 film Alien.[8]
They could make their animated series in 35 or so years, based on Frank Herbert dying in 1986-ish. Though they cannot use the art-work from this book given creators/authors still alive or much more recently deceased.
I turned every page/panel into an NFT and I’m now rich.
/s obviously!
I think the book misses something without Alejandro breathlessly explaining it to you which is really the full legendary experience. They should record him explaining the whole thing and make that their product. I’m sure he’d take some of that cash to do it.
And even then, everyone can see the hash, copy it, etc. so the notion that you “own” it is really just that your handle has been indelibly associated with it on the blockchain.
Until and unless courts start recognizing that association as you having any particular rights to that particular hash (which seems doubtful, given the hash is not a creative work) there is still no actual legal ownership involved.
NFTs seem to me to be just an overcomplicated version of commenting “first.”
That sounds really dumb. I had thought that the blockchain could potentially allow me to buy and resell licenses without involving the publisher.
For instance, say I really like the Le Cercle Rouge, and own it in several digital formats.
A disc of the film contains an encrypted copy, and authorized players that know how to decrypt the film can verify that this is a genuine copy, and therefore I have the rights to view it in a certain region, blah blah blah.
I can sell that disc to someone else, and next time, it will be their player that mediates the license to view. Since I no longer have the proof of pwnership, I can no longer view the movie. (I am taking the legal theory behind the DVDCSS scheme seriously, rather than dismissing it as somethhing that is easily cracked)
Similarly, if I buy a license to view it on amazon, the player checks the license file, and decides that since I paid a certain fee, I am authorized to decode and view those bits. What I cannot really do is transfer this license to another, less bandwidth starved provider, or to a friend, or an ebay bidder. If ownership of a license was recorded on a blockchain, transferring licenses would not be dependent on the permission of the store that sold it to me in the first place.
I just finally got my copy of The Incal from my library, I am all powerful!
As for the Dune book, I respect how doofy Moebius made the mosquito ships, even though he absolutely knows how to make things slick and cool when he wants to…
