Crypto DAO spends €2.66M on Jodorowsky's Dune thinking they would own its copyright 👀
Spice DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization that possesses a copy of an unreleased manuscript of Frank Herbert and Alejandro Jodorowsky's unfinished film Dune, disclosed its plans late Saturday.
The firm had previously won the Christie's auction in November for the sale of the copy for 2.66 million euros (just over $3 million), or almost 89 times its midpoint price expectations.
Spice DAO's future ambitions were described in an inaugural governance proposal supported by 95% of token holders. It commits the DAO to a set of four goals between January and March 2022,
"gain physical custody of Jodorowsky's Dune book by arranging shipping and storage," scan every page of the book, hire a social media agency, and "present a film treatment and budget by Roble Ridge Productions for the original animated limited series inspired by the book for a community vote."
But whats wrong? purchasing a copy of a book does not give the buyer copyright. Copyright in the United States and the European Union typically lasts for the lifetime of the last surviving co-creator, plus another 70 years after their death. Jean Giraud and H.R. Giger, the copyright owners, are deceased, but Jodorowsky, 92 years old, is still alive and well. Twitter users and crypto enthusiasts alike responded to the post with ridicule.
Anyway, if y'all wanna read a free and publicly accessible copy of the book, here's one that's been online since 2011 https://t.co/EQk8gUnDu4
— Alex (Boba Fett Era) | He/Him (@TheNinjaWhippet) January 16, 2022
Spice DAO must obtain a co-creator agreement before creating an animated series based on the book and selling it to a streaming service, or wait 70 years after Jodorowsky's death, when the works will enter the public domain, according to copyright regulations. Furthermore, because auctions require pieces to be appraised by an appraiser to determine their value, there is a lot of confusion about whether the copy can be resold at par. Spice DAO had about 1,236.12 ETH ($4 million) in its treasury at the time of publication.
There's a lot of misunderstanding about crypto and copyright, and many projects aren't doing a good job of describing what crypto "ownership" entails.
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