Mary Gillis: Remember when a group of crypto bros bought a copy of 'Jodorowsky's Dune' for $3 million (around 100x more than it was worth) thinking they could turn it into NFTs and an animated series because they didn't understand what copyright is?

Remember when a group of crypto bros bought a copy of 'Jodorowsky's Dune' for $3 million (around 100x more than it was worth) thinking they could turn it into NFTs and an animated series because they didn't understand what copyright is?

The Saga of the 'Dune' Crypto Bros And Their Very Pricey Mistake Is At Its Endwww.esquire.com In a dismal crypto climate, the group is looking to sell its 'Dune' bible and cash out its treasury. “Really wish this worked out better," the group co-founder said.

Interesting that the head of Microsoft AI doesn't understand what copyright is either. Tech bros as a group seem singularly stuck in the "mine!" stage of child development. www.theverge.com/2024/6/28/24...

Microsoft’s AI boss thinks it’s perfectly OK to steal content if it’s on the open webwww.theverge.com That is not how fair use works.

There is no such thing as "the open web." Every website, every webpage, every bit of data accessible via the web sits on a drive that somebody owns and, in many cases, someone else pays a fee to store it on. Just because I don't fence off my front lawn doesn't mean that Microsoft can steal it.

Everything that exists in a virtual environment corresponds to a physical asset. The same principles of physical property rights apply, in addition to IPR. Microsoft doesn't give away its property; I don't charge a subscription fee for their access to my website—but that's still not giving it away.

The biggest joke is that there was a "open web" when the internet initially arrived, and Microsoft were amongst the first companies to quickly put a stop to it by slapping their copyright onto everything they could to prevent others from making free use of their software and coding.

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Oh good grief he thinks "social contract" is an actual contract

This is the whining I hear from every YouTuber who monetizes clips of my cat. They're always so shocked when the strikes get upheld.

There's youtubersxmaking money off... your cat? What what

Yep. They put random stuff online, puff up their followers with bots, and rake in ad revenue from YT. I made one such guy *very* upset when I reported him for stealing one of my reddit posts, had it read out by an AI voice, and slapped the demo mode of Mario Kart in the background.

Oh god, those fucking AI Reddit posts over video games drive me nuts. Most of those aggregators go to Reddit for content, & my cat has his own subreddit. So his videos get appropriated a LOT. The way Redditors swoop in when they see it is so sweet. www.reddit.com/user/RainSur...

There's groups that scrape content others have uploaded, and then repost it on their own account as "new" content, then use SEO to get their version to the top of the algorithm/search engine so they can rake in money from the views.

I had axwikia I contributed to extensively scraped and listed on Amazon as a printed book; don't know if it's still there, but is that actionable?

There was a big TikTok last week with a fake story about how a girl lost her job & was getting desperate, & her cat started bringing her food. It was stitched together from five different cats, including my cat Harpo, who retrieves things I put out for him.

My cat is very funny. youtube.com/shorts/SqFuX...

Harpo’s BFF Gets a New Friendyoutube.com Last year, I did surgery on Harpo’s sea monster to make it lighter. https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/s/8Gxja6cxXTBut now he’s a year older, yet he’s not struggli...

Microsoft's view on copyright is simple: What's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine. Your IP doesn't matter. Like the time it cloned CP/M. Or Lotus 1-2-3. Or the Xerox and Apple Lisa GUI. Or Netscape. Just don't touch Microsoft's IP. Like the time a Linux vendor called it's distro Lindows.

Microsoft to pay $20M to end Lindows trademark battlewww.computerworld.com

This is why they were all offended at Nightshade/Cara because how dare artists not given them what they want, try to explain the concept of "no if you train AI or use it to gen pictures you can all get equally fucked" just results in "..😦but...but...I have to prompt it's my divine right 🥺"

That's the Chinese understanding of copyright! If you can see it, copy it. There could be some serious legal claims against AI if it is quoting sections of content without the provisos shown in the original.

Hmm I propose that the tech bro's tendency to believe "whatever content I see is mine to do as I wish" is not a cultural disagreement on the meaning of ownership but rather an attempt to monetize everything to their advantage, which corresponds with end stage capitalism

Maybe it could be sabotaged by deliberate introduction of incorrect content. AI doesn't fully understand the difference between reality and parody. This could get interesting 🤔

Yes! Poisoning 'AI' learning is a very real thing that people are doing! If you do a search using "poison ai learning" as keywords you'll get some good results For example, there are two main tools graphic artists use to poison 'AI' graphic scrapers

The funny part is that AI "créations" are in themselves poison to AIs: futurism.com/ai-trained-a...

When AI Is Trained on AI-Generated Data, Strange Things Start to Happenfuturism.com We talked to Rice University scientists studying how training AI with synthetic, AI-generated content causes a destructive inbreeding effect.

Glad to hear it. While I think AI has some very useful potential, plagiarising the work of others should not be a part of it.

“Images were found on the Internet and therefore presumed to be in the public domain.”

You'd think Microsoft, of all companies maybe with the exception of Disney, would have a stable of lawyers who could explain the limits of copyright and the risk he's just exposed the enterprise to... 😂

The joy I got from having to explain this to my Dad was like a Christmas gift, cause I got to hear him say, over and over, “But that’s Stupid”, only for it to get worse when I kept explaining.

I really don't get what they were trying to do there.

I do remember that, it was very funny

Crypto bros should never be allowed within arms reach of more money than required to by an ice cream when the truck comes by...

I think if you stop that sentence after "Allowed" it works even better.

Oh sure. I mean, while we're fantasizing, they should probably be ground into a fine slurry and used as fertilizer. Feet first. Sell photos of the expression on their faces as NFTs.

I know we really shouldn't enjoy this image, but with cryptobros... Yeh.

Hey, it's just good species conservation. Without predators to keep them in check, they've overpopulated their biome. It's unhealthy, and unless action is taken to cull them humanely, it'll only get worse, you know?

In a world growing ever more bleak and unpleasant, it's still wonderful when the right people fail.

I might have missed it in the article, but they also commissioned a (very terrible) script for a Dune ripoff pdfhost.io/v/OdlxZxjcp_...

Vengeance on Planet Zug | PDF Hostpdfhost.io PDF Host read free online - Vengeance on Planet Zug

A highlight

The erratic capitalization is really helpful in identifying the complex and abstruse subtext

A trope walks into a trope, trope sheathed on his back....

How am I so not surprised one of them is a Nazi?

This was literally a joke in Cobra Kai. Johnny: And I want AC/DC blasting out in the ad! Student: Do you have the rights to the song? Johnny: Yeah I got the tape in my car. 👍

I saw a meme of that, asked "Is that actually from the show?", the poster said "Yes", and I decided I had to check it out.

Johnny is a handful of character flaws from being a perfect dad himbo.

Me, to wife, about two weeks ago, context removed (because it would take too long and it's boring personal shit):"Johnny Lawrence is a fun character to watch and a bad character to emulate."

After seeing your post, I thought "Hey, that reminds me, whatever happened to those idiots who thought they owned the Dune copyrights?"... and then I scrolled up to see what you were replying to.

Legit one of the funniest nft stories

It was like thinking you own the Grand Canyon because you bought a postcard.

I wish the publisher would reissue it (in an affordable version!) because the examples I have seen are wonderful.

If you haven't seen it already, there's a film documentary called JODOROWSKY'S DUNE which is really great.

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