George

George RR Martin never had full creative control over ‘Game of Thrones’. Other authors have learned their lesson

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“This is no longer my story” is probably the worst phrase a writer can say, and it is supposed that came not long ago from the mouth of George R.R. Martinmore or less coinciding with the avalanche of audiovisual adaptations of its ‘Game of Thrones’ universe. There is the eternal question of whether the author himself is the best director or showrunner in the screen adaptation of his work, and it will depend a lot on what “author” and what “work”. What is clear is that the shining stars of the publishing market do not want to make the “Martin mistake”: seeing how your world is transformed by others without control or your own voice. Feeling that the story you saw being born no longer belongs to you must be one of the worst experiences for a creator. And given the continuous boom in news of adaptations that have been working deadline at a frenetic pace, names like Brandon Sanderson or Sarah J. Maas are clear that they are not interested in following the path of the eternal debtor of ‘Winds of Winter’. The Martin case As long as you are interested in content, interviews and news about the adaptations of ‘Game of Thrones’, it is easy to come across statements by George RR Martin about his discontentand even something more painful, assuming distance with its own adaptations. At the beginning of the ‘Game of Thrones’ project, his involvement was greater and his role was much more decisive. Although the showrunners main ones were always Benioff and Weissand creative control fell to them, Martin participated as executive producer, occasional screenwriter and advisor. However, starting in season five his role was diluted, and with it his closeness to the direction of the series. Benioff and Weiss, despite having some clues about the outcome, it is true that they had a difficult task to say the least: finish a story that not even its creator had already finished at that time. It is not surprising that given the path that the controversial closureMartin got off the wagon and acknowledged in numerous interviews that his ending was not going to have anything to do with that of the series. Arrive when you arrive. It came out so-so. With this experience, let’s call it bittersweet, one would expect Martin to be more cautious with future adaptations… But not. In ‘The House of the Dragon’ he appears again as co-creator and executive producer and, once again, at first everything seemed to flow normally in the first season. At least until again different points of view with the showrunner of the series, Ryan Condal, once again create creative tensions. The friction already exists, to the point that HBO asked Martin to take a step back from the project. Months later the author would return to production. “George and Ryan had a disagreement about the direction season three should take. At that point, it became clear that the process and communication with them had broken down and we needed to start from scratch. So, naturally, there was a period where we all took a step back for a while until we could find a new way to move forward.” HBO insider And now we have ‘The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’again with George RR Martin as producer and with active involvement. Everything seems to be going well with this new adaptation, but the first season has just finished and experience teaches us that problems begin to appear after the second, so we still don’t know what direction it may take. Others will not make concessions Even so, one cannot put all the responsibility on him or treat this fact as an isolated case. Without focusing on other disciplines where rights and authorship are also a minefield, in the publishing world the relationship between authors and adaptation rights is always they have been complicated. Just look what happened to Tolkien’s work; a real legal tangle with rights fragmented for decades, limitations of creative control of Tolkien and heirs, while different companies managed books, merchandising or characters. What ultimately resonates is that even having the rights doesn’t guarantee real creative control either. The impact that certain decisions or a controversial ending can generate directly affect your work, fandomto your reputation and, why not say it, also to your ego. Therefore, the emphasis that a few months ago is not so crazy Taylor Swift having recovered the rights to all his music; We’re not just talking about the albums, but about the visuals, creative direction, music videos… and in literature it’s a bit the same, it’s fighting to have control over everything that your creation entails. It’s normal that Sanderson doesn’t want to get his fingers caught. When an author signs with a studio to adapt their work, a sale of rights occurs to transfer the production of the series or film, temporarily or permanently. Here comes an important point: these rights can be exploitative (including books, possible spin-offs, merchandisingvideo games) or they can be separate rights where the production company or studio does not have full ownership. Now, taking into account the stumbles of other writers with this type of agreement, the essential thing for this new generation, even if the transfer of rights occurs, is to negotiate creative control clauses. This is where Sanderson He led the way a few months ago. After years of trying that did not bear fruit, the author of Cosmere is now taking advantage of his editorial power and his legion of followers to take the reins of the adaptation of his work on Apple TV. He will be the architect of the universe; He will be in charge of writing, producing, advising and will also have decision-making power. That is a level of involvement that not even JK Rowling or Martin enjoy. “I flew to Hollywood and pitched my projects to all the major streaming platforms and studios. Basically, everyone tried to bid on ‘Mistborn’ and ‘The Stormlight’. In the end, … Read more

Sanderson finally signs the Cosmere adaptations after years of fighting, and Apple gives him more control than George RR Martin has

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Brandon Sanderson has closed an unprecedented agreement with Apple TV to adapt the literary universe of Cosmere. The platform will develop films based on the ‘Mistborn’ saga and a series of ‘The Storm File’, the author’s two main franchises. The pact gives Sanderson a level of creative control higher than even that enjoyed by JK Rowling or George RR Martin with their respective adaptations: he will be the architect of the universe, he will produce, he will be consulted and he will have the power of approval over creative decisions. Several attempts. The announcement comes after years of deals that did not come together. In 2016, DMG Entertainment acquired the rights to the Cosmere for $270 million for three films, but the project never moved forward. own Sanderson recognized in December 2024, in your annual updatebeing “back at square one” after the collapse of negotiations for a film adaptation of ‘Mistborn’ that had reached very advanced stages of development. The project had taken five years of work, had a finished script and linked actors whose identities he could not reveal. Sanderson later detailed on Reddit that the plan contemplated a hybrid model: a first big-budget film followed by a television season covering the period between books one and two of the original trilogy. A second film would adapt the second book, followed by another transitional season. The main actors would have signed contracts for both film and television. An unusual success. The new agreement with Apple represents the culmination of the publishing phenomenon led by Sanderson: his books have sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, a figure that includes both his solo works and his contributions to ‘The Wheel of Time’ by Robert Jordan, which he completed after his death in 2007. In 2022 he established the record for Most successful literary Kickstarter in history by raising 41.7 million to self-publish four secret novels written during the pandemic. But what is the Cosmere? The Cosmere is a shared universe that interconnects multiple fantasy sagas through a common cosmology and interlocking systems of magic. The model resembles Isaac Asimov’s approach with his universe of robots and foundations, although Sanderson planned the connections from the beginning to avoid the need to reconcile items later. The Cosmere encompasses different planets with distinct civilizations, histories and magical systems but based on a shared mythology: the being Adonalsium, whose power fragmented into sixteen shards distributed throughout the cosmos. The agreement. Apple closed the deal after a competitive process in which Sanderson met with most of the top studio executives in Hollywood. In this way, the company is left with a fictional universe that has similarities with another franchise it also owns, ‘Foundation’ (and, in part, with ‘Silo’), which allows it to compete in the field of fantasy and science fiction adaptations with Amazon (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Wheel of Time), HBO (Game of Thrones) and Netflix (The Witcher). It is not the first time that Apple has reached agreements with prestigious creators, such as Alfonso Cuarón (‘Disclaimer’) or Martin Scorsese (‘The Moon Killers’), but none had been given as much creative control as Sanderson. The challenges of the Cosmere. The technical and narrative complexity of the Cosmere poses notable obstacles. For example, magic systems: Allomancy in ‘Mistborn’ allows users to “burn” ingested metals to obtain supernatural abilities differentiated according to each metal. Sanderson expressed on Reddit his concern about a possible oversimplification that denaturalizes these systems, designed with coherent internal rules that structure entire plots. The length of the works is another problem: the books often easily exceed a thousand pages. For example, the five Stormlight Archive books add up to nearly two and a half million words, and Sanderson plans ten volumes in total. The expectation. The announcement made by the author on Reddit generated thousands of comments analyzing the implications of the level of creative control guaranteed to the author. The closest precedent to this model could be Peter Jackson with ‘The Lord of the Rings’, although in that case the author of the original work was absent. Meanwhile, Sanderson asks for patience: film development requires years of prior work, usually between two and three, before reaching the production phase. What is clear is that although Sanderson’s presence provides guarantees and Apple is potentially a great option for adaptation, the process is not going to be easy. In Xataka | Brandon Sanderson eviscerates the Cosmere, his narrative technique, which includes an Excel sheet, and the moment that made him a writer

George RR Martin asked ChatGPT to write ‘Game of Thrones’. He did it so well that he is going to end up before the judge

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The debate about the AI usage limits and how is this going to actually affect the creators It is very complex, and it has only just begun. From discerning to what extent AI’s ability to create works outside of humans will continue to grow to the logical ethical and legal concerns that appear around a tool that, from its very definition, is in a completely unexplored area. At the moment, George RR Martin and other authors are taking steps in search of more demanding regulation. What has happened? A federal judge in Manhattan has given the green light for the lawsuit filed by George RR Martin and other authors against OpenAI and Microsoft for alleged copyright violation. The creator of ‘Game of Thrones’ and his colleagues accuse these companies of use his works without authorization to train ChatGPT. According to the ruling issued on October 27, 2025, there are reasons for the case to move forward, since ChatGPT’s proposal for a sequel to the saga was substantially similar to Martin’s work already protected by copyright. The determining test. It came when lawyers asked ChatGPT to create a fictional sequel to ‘A Clash of Kings’. The chatbot immediately spawned a novel called ‘Dance of Shadows’, a sequel that included a new Targaryen heir named Lady Elara, a rebellious sect of the Children of the Forest, and a mysterious form of ancient dragon-related magic. This ability to recreate elements from Martin’s universe made the question clear: how could the AI ​​know his work in such detail without having fed on it? The precedents. The origins of this legal conflict date back to September 2023, when Martin, accompanied by 17 other authors (including people like Michael Chabon, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jia Tolentino, John Grisham, Jonathan Franzen and Sarah Silverman) raised his voice against what he considered a systematic exploitation of his work. The case was brought by the Authors Guild union, in a lawsuit that spoke of “systematic theft on a massive scale”, arguing that the tool makes use of their works without paying royalties and without the writers’ consent. The letter. Months before the lawsuit, these authors and many others, such as Margaret Atwood or Nora Roberts, they had sent a letter to large technology companies conveying their concerns about generative AI technologies. In that document they warned about “the injustice inherent in exploiting our works as part of your AI systems without our consent, credit or compensation.” The accusation was clear: ChatGPT had not only learned from his books; Now I could replicate them. Other attacks. We are at a key moment in determining the legal implications of generative AI. At the beginning of 2025, for example, it was decided by the juries a similar dispute against Anthropicwhich concluded with an out-of-court settlement: the company paid $1.5 billion to authors whose works were used without permission. This precedent shows that technology companies are willing to negotiate to avoid court rulings that could establish binding jurisprudence. In England, by contrast, the High Court of England determined that Stability AI did not infringe copyright by train your model with Getty imagesthat is, a decision in literally the opposite direction, which has generated alarm among European creators. In all these cases the debate about “fair use” or fair use: The technology companies argue that the training of their models constitutes a transformative use of works, similar to when search engines index content. The creators reply that it is a massive appropriation that replaces, not complements, the original work. And in the background, a shock that has only just begun. Header |Gage Skidmore

War is already the dystopia that George Miller imagined

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In recent weeks, the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk has become the new epicenter of wear harshest military of the war. What began as a key logistics and supply point for kyiv’s forces in Donbas has been transformed in a trap where the Ukrainian army struggles to maintain a viable defense against the constant push of Russian troops. The last scene shown on video brings us closer to a dystopia than ever. On the verge of collapse. In early November, former officers and civilian figures such as Vitaliy Deynega, founder of the organization Come Back Alivethey warned that the situation “is more than complicated and less than controlled,” asking for withdrawal before the city was completely surrounded. The reality on the ground reflected that urgency: the Ukrainian defensive lines were increasingly thinnerwith a force of only four to seven infantry per kilometer of front, while Russia continued to fuel its offensive with a constant flow of men and material. The Ukrainian brigades, exhausted and diminished, faced a dilemma that summarizes the current phase of the conflict: either resist to preserve the narrative of firmness, or withdraw to save lives in the face of an enemy with numerical superiority and the capacity to replenish. The weight of scarcity and exhaustion. I remembered the financial times that the battle for Pokrovsk has highlighted a problem that kyiv has tried to avoid publicly acknowledging: its military personnel deficit. Desertions are increasing, new recruits are scarce, and many men are avoiding mobilization. Only in October they opened almost 20,000 cases for unauthorized absences or abandonment of units, the highest number of the year. This collapse in replenishment has led to many positions being held by drone units and volunteers, rather than by conventional infantry force. Military analyst Konrad Muzyka describe the situation as a “real decrease in the size of the ground forces”, with sectors of the front practically monitored only by drones. More money. President Zelenskyy has attempted to reverse this trend by short contractsamnesties for deserters and incentivized recruitments, but the results have not yet arrived. Meanwhile, Russian forces They have taken advantage of the gap– Your assault squads, reinforced with well-paid volunteers, infiltrate destroyed urban areas, occupying tall buildings and cutting off supply corridors connecting Pokrovsk to Myrnohrad. Each Ukrainian withdrawal movement seems like a repetition of other fallen cities: Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Vuhledar. Russian improvised vehicles in Ukraine The Russian dystopian emergence. In this context of exhaustion, Russia has intensified its offensive in both Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, applying pincer tactics to isolate key urban centers and secure the railway axes that feed its military logistics. The statements of the Russian Ministry of Defense announce partial conquests (oil depots, train stations, industrial neighborhoods), while propaganda channels broadcast videos showing Russian columns advancing in the middle of the fog on roads covered in rubble. The imagesgeolocated south of Pokrovsk, portray a almost apocalyptic scenario: motorcycles and trucks without doors, soldiers perched on the roofs and a dense silence interrupted only by the drone of drones. This trailer, which is reminiscent of scenes almost traced from the Mad Max sagasymbolizes the harshness of the war of attrition in eastern Ukraine. Extra ball. In that sense, the fog has played a crucial tactical rolereducing the effectiveness of Ukrainian air surveillance and allowing Russian units to penetrate the southern suburbs. For Moscow, Pokrovsk represents more than a territorial conquest: it is the step towards Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the strategic jewels of industrial Donbas. Symbol of resistance. Despite the Russian advance, the Ukrainian army continues to resist inside the city, where it is estimated that they remain more than 300 enemy soldiers. Local units, such as the 7th Rapid Response Corps, have communicated who continue to identify and neutralize Russian groups in urban combat and keep the supply to Myrnohrad operational, although with increasing difficulties. However, the tension between the official narrative and the reality on the ground is palpable: while Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi affirms that the situation “is under control,” independent civilian and military reports describe an increasingly tight siege. The human limit. Many analysts agree with one idea: the decision to maintain the position at all costs could have psychological consequences devastating if the retreat turns into a chaotic defeat under fire, repeating the Bakhmut patterns. With exhausted forces and a militarized population resisting new calls, Pokrovsk embodies the physical and moral border of the Ukrainian war effort. If it falls, it will open not only a military corridor to the heart of Donbas, but also a new chapter in the war: that of a country forced to redraw its strategy with fewer men, more machines and a determination tested like never before. Image | YouTube In Xataka | Europe has just realized the size of the drone threat: they have gone where no one could imagine In Xataka | The Ukrainian war is really being fought in the future: Russian soldiers already have “invisibility” cloaks

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