‘Dune’ animated series in development, says crypto group

nme.com:

Dune, has claimed that its animated version has gone into development despite questions over copyright.The group paid £2.2million – 100 times the estimate – for the book of art, created by director Alejandro Jodorowsky in the 1970s, at auction in November.Following the purchase, Spice DAO said it planned to “make the book public (to the extent permitted by law)” and that it was going to “produce an original animated limited series inspired by the book and sell it to a streaming service”.However, ownership of a copy of a book, no matter how much was paid for it, does not grant any intellectual property rights to either distribute copies of it or to adapt it into another medium.Frank Herbert’s Dune novel has been adapted on screen three times: David Lynch’s 1984 film, a TV mini-series in 2000, and Denis Villeneuve’s version released last year.The announcement by Spice DAO was roundly dismissed as a stunt by social media users who suspect the group’s ultimate plan is to sell the individual pages from the book as NFTs – digital images with ownership rights – especially as there was speculation on a Spice DAO internet forum that the physical book could be burned as a publicity stunt after the NFTs have sold.We won the auction for €2.66M.

Now our mission is to:1. Make the book public (to the extent permitted by law) 2. Produce an original animated limited series inspired by the book and sell it to a streaming service3.