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The Almighty Buck Sci-Fi

The Spice DAO Crypto Collective Wants to Sell Its 'Dune' Bible - But Can't Find Buyers (theverge.com) 47

Posted by EditorDavid from the one-step-beyond-logic dept.
Remember the Spice DAO? They raised $3 million to buy a rare copy of a proposed film adaptation of Dune, "allegedly with the misguided idea that owning the book would also grant them the rights to its content," Morning Brew reported back in January. Their ambitious goal was to make the Dune bible public, before producing an animated series and supporting community projects.

But now they're just trying to sell it, in what they're calling "Redemption Phase One" — although project lead Kortelin indicated on Discord that the bible currently has "no willing buyers," the Verge reports: After a series of setbacks in an ambitious plan for a crypto-powered media studio, the group is letting people who hold its $SPICE token cash out by withdrawing their money from the group's treasury. It will change its name to "Spice Club," a "members only group" instead of a body with a formal voting structure. And it will cut its upkeep expenses to the bare minimum, a process that includes handing off the fragile and valuable book that inspired its creation.

Members who hold $SPICE might earn returns from the Spice Club's remaining initiatives. The group hopes to make money from the sale of the book and a non-fungible token (NFT) collaboration with comics artist Frank Miller. But that plan is complicated by the dismal state of the cryptocurrency market and legal questions around DAOs and tokens like $SPICE as well as doubts about whether the book could be auctioned for anything remotely approaching its purchase price of roughly $3 million.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader UnknowingFool for sharing the story!
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The Spice DAO Crypto Collective Wants to Sell Its 'Dune' Bible - But Can't Find Buyers More

The Spice DAO Crypto Collective Wants to Sell Its 'Dune' Bible - But Can't Find Buyers

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  • Might as well sell feces-scented toxic waste with a bow on it.

  • I'll buy it ... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ... for the right price. The right very, very, very low price that is.

  • Stupidity is the one constant in the crypto world. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Saturday July 30, 2022 @06:11PM (#62747820)

    the misguided idea that owning the book would also grant them the rights to its content

    I find it hard to imagine how a group of literate adults would think they owned the rights to a script by buying a rare copy of it.

    Come to think of it, there are two constants in the crypto world: Stupidity and fraud. The latter sounds like a more plausible explanation.

    • Re:Stupidity is the one constant in the crypto wor (Score:5, Funny)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Saturday July 30, 2022 @06:24PM (#62747838)

      ... there are two constants in the crypto world: Stupidity and fraud.

      Or, as Ronny Chieng said on The Daily Show the other night (from memory):

      People with so much money they had to invent something to lose money.

      • I know, right? John Oliver put it something along the lines of how they have so much money they've run out of things to buy, so they created NFTs.

        If people have that kind of money just burning a hole in their bank accounts they can give it to me. When I have accumulated enough that I will never have to work again in my life, unless I want to, they can start giving money to the next person.

        Or if not me, how about a charity? Set up a foundation or a scholarship fund. There's all kinds of things these people c

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      I think a large number of people that are deeply involved in crypto are delusional (in the medical sense), and would otherwise fall for any other huckster.

      It's just somewhat more obvious now, since it's global.

      • I don't think they are medically delusional. Just delusional in the sense that they all suffer from the same feeling of being in the know of an open secret that only they have the brilliance to recognize and no one else does.

        Whether they're 9/11 truthers, flat earthers, anti-vaxx, Qunts, Randians, moon landing deniers, AGW deniers - they think they have the special ability to see the Truth, and everything else is Lies.

        They were dullards. But then they started to "notice stuff" and put things together
        • I saw this during the first tech bubble. P/E's were skyrocketing or negative and I would chat with competent engineers who when I would ask how the market can keep going up without profits to support it, their response was always just a faith based response of "It will". It didn't. But when something just goes up for a long time, people become conditioned to tomorrow will be like today and keep going up. It is going to take alot of tomorrows of going down to sway their belief. Very few people challenge thei

    • Re:Stupidity is the one constant in the crypto wor (Score:4, Interesting)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Saturday July 30, 2022 @06:59PM (#62747880)
      The details about what they bought make it worse. They didn't buy a copy of Frank Herbert's Dune. They bought a book of Alejandro Jodorowsky's storyboard and design ideas when he was trying to get movie studios in the 1970s to make his version of Dune which they all rejected. It would be like if someone bought a rejected script for an X-Men movie from decades ago and thinking they had acquired the rights from Marvel today.

      • Re:Stupidity is the one constant in the crypto wor (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Saturday July 30, 2022 @07:12PM (#62747908)

        Just scrolled back in my Twitter feed to the discussion on this back in November 2021 and yeah, loads of people were telling them “wont work, you dont get any rights” and those people were shouted down.

        These two gems stood out in particular:

        “You dont think they have thought about that before spending $2million on this?” - apparently they didnt.

        “Thats the next step” - by the same person who posted the above response, in response to a tweet saying they also needed to get the rights in order to do any of the planned things.

        Its astounding how much handwaving people buy into with regard to things like this, NFTs etc. $2million spent and all they got was a book. The rest of it (rights, buyers etc) was supposed to just fall in place, and it didnt. Seems that surprised a few people

        • And the physical copy of the script literally has no connection to the IP rights. No one aiming to get the rights would have bothered with buying a collectible. "Scam" written all over it.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by PyRosf ( 874783 )
            The first superbowl is in this same limbo, someone has a copy, but the NFL claims copyright (they dont have a copy however). This script may be a one of a kind as well. They own the physical media, but the rights are still held by the creator or the estate. This is sorta a legal quagmire, The copyright holder cant reproduce it, which is the purpose of copyright (to allow for reproduction) and the physical owner may not be allowed to even sell the media (time shifting is legal but only personal use). Mix
            • Even against psychotic copyright claims, all you'd have to do to defeat them is impose a standard where only one person at a time can view something, which makes the idea of a "copy" totally academic.

            • This is sorta a legal quagmire, The copyright holder cant reproduce it, which is the purpose of copyright (to allow for reproduction) and the physical owner may not be allowed to even sell the media (time shifting is legal but only personal use). Mix in some questions if copyright applies since the law at the time was "strange".

              Why is it a "legal quagmire"? The key word in your statement is copyrights "allow" for reproduction. Copyright does not require the holder to reproduce the work nor own a copy. A single copy that existed at one point is all that is required. After all, if it was a "legal quagmire" as you say, many copyright holders whose works like vinyl records which are now longer produced would be in legal trouble if the masters no longer existed. Sure the holders cannot profit as they do not have a copy to reproduce; le

        • It's like that scene in Cobra Kai with Johnny Lawrence.

          Aisha: You'll need to buy the rights to the song.

          Johnny Lawrence: No I don't, I got the tape of it in my car.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Nevermind that most of that book was online already - so if you wanted the contents of the book, you could read it for practically free.

          All they have is a physical object, and they wildly overpaid for it as well - the estimated price for it was only around $100K or so tops.

          Reminds me a lot of the "fractional ownership" companies. Just like you can buy shares and own a part of a company, you can buy shares in rare stuff to "own" it as well. A rare working Apple Lisa with all the software and manuals? If you

    • Actually do they even have a right to read that book? I assume owner of the manuscript would inherently have a right to read it and let their friends read it. So where such inherent rights stop and actual infringing distribution starts?
      • As in, the right to copy. When you buy a tangible form of a work, you have the right to let other eyeballs directly look at that exact physical material, but all other forms of communication are restricted because they involve copying. Technically you can't even upload photographs of it if more than a Fair Use sample of the content is intelligible. In fact, to take it to an absurd extreme, it would be an infringement for someone with a photographic memory to look at it and then write it down from memory
        • If they write it down for own use then it's not distribution. Only if they give other people copies they wrote from memory then it's distribution.
          • My point is that copyright "law" as interpreted by the oligopoly that owns almost every song, movie, and TV show ever made is totally ridiculous. According to them, everyone who ever invited a friend over to watch a movie is a pirate.

      • Actually do they even have a right to read that book? I assume owner of the manuscript would inherently have a right to read it and let their friends read it. So where such inherent rights stop and actual infringing distribution starts?

        In this aspect I don't see how they'd be any different than a library, in fact they'd be on a bit firmer grounds since each member would actually own part of the book.

        Of course, that's the physical copy. I don't think they could make digital copies available for their members to read (except through the same mechanisms that libraries use).

    • I find it hard to imagine how a group of literate adults would think they owned the rights to a script by buying a rare copy of it.

      You don't know much about the cryptocurrency world do you? This is exactly the sort of thing that people engaging in that group hallucination would believe.

  • Any chance a certain all-girl UK pop sensation from decades ago might go after them for infringing on their "Spice" name?

    • Unless they also plan on releasing music I am pretty sure this group of morons will be pretty safe from that.

      • The Spice Girls still tour and release albums.

        • It doesn't matter, The Spice Girls don't own the trade mark "spice" across all industries. Unless these crypto idiots also try to release pop music under the spice banner they will have no issues.

        • The Spice Girls still tour and release albums.

          Good for them. Unless they start a crypto / banking business there isn't an issue with trademarks. Though if they do get into crypto/banking they will very likely lose any attempt to gain a trademark in that area.

          First come, first served. There's a reason Burger King is called Hungry Jacks in Australia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          There's also a reason www.nissan.com doesn't direct to Nissan cars, and that Nissan Computers got to keep using its name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] It's sad that the

      • Sosumi. [wikipedia.org]

  • HA ha! /Nelson

  • Sometimes there is no next sucker.

  • As opposed to unwilling buyers?

  • So who else read the title and thought they wanted to sell the Orange Catholic Bible?

  • Fucking nonsense

  • "Crypto idiots can't find new idiots to sell their crap to"

    There. Summary of all crypto stories in the past 2 weeks and the foreseeable future.

  • I'd buy that for a dollar.

    The original of course, not any duplicates.
    Maybe put it in a display with a synopsis of it's history, especially of the stupidest parts, mostly the Spice DAO

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