Martin Shkreli will be infamous for the duration of his lifetime for his shady drug company dealings, including allegedly price gouging of life-saving medications. But almost as infamous, at least in the eyes of hip-hop fans, was his acquisition of the Wu-Tang Clan's "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin," an album engineered to be a truly one-of-a-kind piece of music that was never to be physically or digitally copied. Now, Shkreli has been legally ordered by a judge to surrender all his copies of the album, which was never supposed to have been copied at all in the first place.
Shkreli bought the album for $2 million from the Wu-Tang Clan in 2015, the same year he was convicted of securities fraud. The album was eventually seized and sold off by US authorities following Shkreli's conviction, this time getting $4.75 million from a crypto NFT collective called PleasrDAO at the auction block in 2017. Then, earlier this year, PleasrDAO filed suit against Shkreli, alleging he still owned copies of the record and had even streamed part of the album during an online "Wu-Tang Official Listening Party" after his release from prison in 2022.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Unfortunately for Shkreli, the lawsuit included multiple examples of his online boasts about the album, including one instance on a podcast in which he claimed to have "burned the album and sent it to like, 50 different chicks." Now, a judge has ruled in PleasrDAO's favor, ordering Shkreli to surrender any and all copies of "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" to his attorneys. PleasrDAO lawyer Steven Cooper added more specifics to Shkreli's legal obligation for Business Insider, and it sounds like he might have to start texting all those chicks:
"Then, by September, he has to provide a full accounting of all the copies he's made, the money he's made to date from those copies, and who he has distributed them to, along with their names and addresses."
It's worth pointing out that despite Shkreli's claims in public and on social media to have widely distributed the album, no copies have surfaced online. But Cooper says that there could very well be unauthorized copies floating about:
"We think there's a strong possibility that there are copies of it, and he did not deny that he made copies in his opposition papers."
It's a big win for PleasrDAO and a step towards ensuring they remain the album's sole owner. The record was intended to be a throwback to the pre-mass-media days of art when a piece of music, painting, or sculpture would be commissioned as a one-of-a-kind work and then loaned to museums or galleries throughout the world. To that end, PleasrDAO reportedly lent out "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" for its first museum exhibition at the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania.
Shkreli has not commented publicly on the decision as of this writing, but his attorney says in a statement that "this Order is merely a preliminary measure entered by the Court to maintain the perceived status quo before any discovery occurs – the Order has no bearing whatsoever on the final outcome of the case."
