The Dune NFT Fiasco Is the Least of Crypto’s Legal Worries

January 19, 2022
Wired

Types : Bylined Articles

Spice DAO’s copyright misstep shows how many questions there are about the rules of cryptoart. This is an opportunity for transformation.

BEFORE SPICE DAO dropped $3 million on a rare copy of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s production book for Dune at Christie’s, the group tweeted its intention to “tokenize” the book.

It can’t do that.

The decentralized autonomous organization has since backpedaled, now saying (somewhat implausibly) that it never believed owning a copy of the book would equal ownership of copyright, with the attendant rights to reproduce the work in NFT form or prepare derivative works. The incident has nevertheless captured the attention of crypto skeptics, who point to the Spice DAO purchase as an example of what can go wrong when crypto enthusiasts get ahead of themselves.

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