Paolini showing a moral spine?

[torylltales]

It seems rare when Paolini does something worthy of praise, but when he does I feel it is important to give him credit where it's due. That's the difference between a group that is deeply critical of his published work, and a group that just hates reflexively.


Recently Paolini shared a series of tweets on the topic of Inheritance or Fractalverse NFTs, and I have to give him credit for drawing a line in exactly how and how much he's willing to exploit his fans.

·

9 Jun

 

1/2 I had so many folks in the #NFTCommunity approach me about doing #NFTs based off my work. I'm generally a big fan of new technology, especially stuff that allows artists to support themselves, but the more I looked into NFTs, the less tangible benefit I saw.

·

9 Jun

 

2/2 NFTs just feel ... exploitive. Plus, although I understand the blockchain tech, I still can't see why anyone would pay for a .jpg/gif that anyone could copy off their screen. I'd rather sell prints and other real items/objects.

·

9 Jun

 

The reason I'm not doing #NFTs is the same reason I turned down a lucrative offer from Amazon to publish licensed fan-fic. It felt like it would be exploiting the very folks who love my work. Heck, I released an entire novella for free last year. I'd rather give back than take.



Hats off to you, Paolini, that is an admirable stance to take on the issue. And I don't mean to damn with faint praise, so to speak, but it is admirable that he is taking a stance at all, especially one which is against further profiting off his fanbase.

Comments

[epistler]

...the same reason I turned down a lucrative offer from Amazon to publish licensed fan-fic.

Wait, what? That's a thing now??
Either way that's pretty hilarious considering his books are already licensed fanfic.

[snarkbotanya]

Honestly? I think he's absolutely right here. NFTs are a scam and I'm glad he's taking a stance against being involved with them.

Paolini may be a bad writer, but I don't think he's a bad person.

[epistler]

I think he lacks integrity, but apparently said lack of integrity does have its limits, which is nice.

[snarkbotanya]

Oh, he's certainly a flawed person. I just don't think he's actively malicious. His characters are, but that's pretty clearly an accident on his part.

[epistler]

Yeah, I don't think he's malicious at all. He's just untalented and amazingly un-self-aware, and occasionally super ignorant. None of which are exactly crimes. He's clearly just spent far too much of his life being told he's the greatest to listen to anyone who tells him his writing practises are morally questionable and artistically bankrupt. And I place most of the blame for that on his horrible parents, who I absolutely DO think are malicious people. Or at least his father is.

[osteophage]

Bleak sign of the times that this is admirable, but yeah.

[torylltales]

It's better than living down to my low expectations. I fully expected FractalCoin™ to hit the market at some point.

[torylltales]

Oh yeah, speaking of the "entire novella" he released last year ("Unity", check the supplementary_materials tag for my sporking of it), he's... now looking to release it in print, for a profit. So much for giving back.

[epistler]

If he does he'd better watch out, because the CYOA format is copyrighted and the people who own said copyright aren't shy about suing people who use it without permission. They sued over an episode of Black Mirror, for one thing.

(Nobody tell him. A copyright infringement lawsuit against him is way overdue).

[torylltales]

Oh, how I hope this plays out and he gets sued. That might open up the gate for everyone else, like Bruce Coville, the Eddings and Tolkien estates, Lucas Arts/Disney, the McCaffrey and Le Guin estates, etc etc... to present a class action plagiarism lawsuit.

Extremely unlikely, but one can dream...

[epistler]

It would be massively satisfying for us, and a badly needed and far too long awaited wake-up call for him.

[torylltales]

Do you think he would actually get the message, though? Arguably his little splash in the pond hasn't harmed the income of any of the mega-yachts he's paddling around beside, so I doubt any judge would hand down significant damages. But maybe the attention and negative press would make it much harder to secure future publishing contracts, and would probably kill any plans for a Disney Eragon reboot dead in the water.

And that's enough boat metaphors for now, I'd better set sail before I sink...

[epistler]

Do you think he would actually get the message, though?

I imagine he'd come out with some weasel-worded half excuse which included words like "misunderstanding" and "homage". But it would still damage his reputation. Quite possibly even more so if he refuses to own up to it.

[torylltales]

I imagine the bilgewater that comes with having your name being openly associated with unrepentant intellectual piracy would make it nearly impossible for Paolini to keep his writing career afloat. Many a better writer than he have seen their contracts cast adrift for far lesser crimes.

Okay now it's enough boating metaphors.

[epistler]

That's very true. Once you've proven that you can't be trusted to be publishing your own original material, you're out. No publisher with a brain will touch you with a bargepole. In fact I can tell you from personal experience that your standard issue publishing contract contains a clause you have to sign, stating that this is all your own work. If it turns out you lied when you signed it, it's grounds for having said contract rendered void and your publication cancelled or your book pulled from sale if it's already out.

[torylltales]

Bargepole? We don't need no stinking bargepole!

[epistler]

How about a clownpole?

[minionnumber2]

On one hand, good on him for not doing NFT stuff. On the other, it's a little less brave to denounce NTFs after Ethereum collapsed and the entire concept is no longer seen as hip and cool by the general public.

[torylltales]

That is a very good point.

[ignoresandra]

Huh. When even Christopher Paolini won't touch something because he thinks it's scummy, that says something.

He also misunderstands NFTs. Buying an NFT isn't buying an image, it's buying a link to an image with no guarantee that link will remain functional. Yes, it's that stupid and that much of a scam.

[torylltales]

It's not just links to images; you can also buy virtual "land" in a virtual "city" (you know, in that magical realm called the metaverse, where there is technically zero scarcity of anything unless it is enforced by the people who control it), for which you can then buy a virtual "house" and fill it with virtual "stuff"... and there's still no guarantee that your virtual stuff will continue to exist tomorrow, or if the server will just go offline and disappear, or if the value of stuff will suddenly plummet or skyrocket several hundred percent overnight, or even if someone will hack your account and steal all your virtual stuff.

There's also no way to compensate you if you get scammed or hacked or your virtual stuff is stolen, because the blockchain cannot be rewound or edited, only continuing forwards (unless of course someone produces a splinter blockchain that continues independently like an alternate timeline, in which case you still have your stuff in the new timeline, but not in the old one, and you can never again interact with the old one)

The whole thing from concept to execution is a lawyer's, programmer's, and accountant's nightmare.

[ignoresandra]

So, cryptocurrency isn't what it says on the tin. It's not a currency, because there isn't a use case. I can't buy my groceries with it. If I woke up tomorrow and all my money was in cryptocurrency, I couldn't pay my bills or anything without first exchanging the cryptocurrency for real money. Sure I'd have problems if all my money was changed for yen or euro or some other currency that isn't legal tender in my country but I could literally just go to my bank and get that sorted out.

So if cryptocurrency is not a currency, the question becomes: What is it?

A friend of mine answered that with: A ponzi scheme. Their reasoning is that it plays out exactly like a ponzi scheme - the early adopters get paid out, the people who come later get scammed, and everyone's trying desperately to have some other sucker be holding the cryptocurrency when the bubble gets popped. It's a space populated solely by grifters, wanna-be grifters, and marks.

[cmdrnemo]

Not quite. While NFTs are very much a scam. And many of the crypto coins on the market are indeed just quick cash out options. There's a reason crypto currencies have continued to exist for 13 years. There's a lot more going on there than a simple scheme. And the base idea is not based on scams. It's based on how currencies used to work before WWII. Or more precisely it's an idea about returning the currency process to what it was for all of history before the U.S. government changed the whole idea, while retaining the modern ability to transfer large amounts securely and safely over long distances.

In the future all currencies will be based on the idea. Whether or not there is a direct connection to any modern crypto and the eventual natural currency of the internet is debatable, and honestly unlikely. But, someday the idea of government issued currencies will go the way of the dodo. They are just too easy to manipulate.

[ignoresandra]

I don't want to get into a whole debate, but I really really doubt that the blockchain sticks around as an idea (To back a "currency". I can see applications for tracking who last had sensitive files or the like). If nothing else, the amount of energy it uses and the extremely slow transaction speed when compared to fiat currency are both deal-breakers as far as mass implementation goes. The former will likely kill the planet and the latter doesn't allow for practical daily use by billions of people.

Fiat currency also exists because the nature of money is that everyone has to have some. Because human population has trended upward, the amount of money needed has also trended upward. That's a major reason for inflation, and inflation on its own is not necessarily a bad thing. Consider that there may have been good reasons to change from currency backed by obscure metals to currency backed by agreement that it is valuable.

Currency backed by obscure metals - usually gold - comes from days when gold was the only metal that could be shaped. Gold did not back money, gold was money. Then things changed. Things will change again. The nature of time is that things change, and going back to the past typically is a bad idea.

Money is itself a social construct, so there's no particular reason a fiat currency is invalid. There's nothing inherently valuable about gold or silver or 1s and 0s in a computer somewhere - these things have value because we agree it does. Fiat currency just cuts out the unnecessary middleman and goes directly to: The currency has value because we agree it does.

Consider carefully that one of the ways grifters prey on marks is by convincing the marks that there is a massive problem they should be scared of that's responsible for all the bad things (Trans people, uppity women, inflation), but it's all right because the grifter can sell you a solution.

Think about that, and think about who you listen to.