Martin Shkreli Hit With Judge’s Restraining Order In Lawsuit Over One-of-a-Kind Wu-Tang Album
Written by djfrosty on June 12, 2024
Just hours after convicted “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli was sued over claims that he illegally copied and distributed Wu-Tang Clan’s one-of-a-kind album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, a federal judge has ordered him to appear in court and to immediately stop “causing further damage.”
In a ruling late Tuesday, Judge Pamela Chen issued a temporary restraining order against the disgraced pharma executive, siding with arguments from PleasrDAO — a digital art collective that bought the album in 2021 after Shkreli was forced to forfeit it as part of his criminal case.
“Plaintiff will suffer immediate and irreparable injury—namely, erosion of the Album’s uniqueness as an original work of art,” the judge wrote. She also ordered Shkreli to appear in court later this month and said she might force him to turn over digital records and account for any ill-gotten profits.
Trending on Billboard
And Judge Chen explicitly threatened Shkreli with criminal penalties if he flouts her order: “Defendant is warned that any act by him in violation of any of the terms of this order, after actual notice of this order to defendant, may be considered and prosecuted as contempt of this court.”
The quick restraining order came less than a day after PleasrDAO sued Shkreli over the leak of the album, accusing him of violating both their purchase agreement and the federal forfeiture order that required him to hand it over. They also accused him of violating federal trade secrets law, which protect valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.
“The album was supposed to constitute the sole existing copy of the record, music, data and files, and packaging,” the group’s attorneys wrote earlier on Tuesday. “It now appears, however, that Shkreli improperly retained copies of the data and files at the time of the forfeiture and has released and/or intends to release them to the public.”
In an X post on Tuesday, Shkreli said: “these super nerds are suing me 🤣🤣🤣🤣 the least crypto ethos, whitest, least culturally relevant dorks good luck!” In later posts, he called the lawsuit “frivolous” and also re-shared an X post in which another user suggested the lawsuit would fail: “Even if they win, doesn’t Shkreli just anonymously leak the album online out of spite?”
Shkreli did not immediately return a request for additional comment.
Wu-Tang’s legendary Once Upon a Time in Shaolin was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. Though the group intended the bizarre trappings as a protest against the commodification of music, Shaolin later became the ultimate commodity. In 2015, Shkreli – already infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought it at auction in 2015 for $2 million.
The deal came with an unusual stipulation: that the album could not be duplicated or otherwise released to the general public in any form until 2103, or 88 years after the initial purchase. According to court documents, the deal did permit for the album to be played for private listening events in “spaces not customarily used as venues for large musical concerts.”
In 2017, Shkreli was found guilty on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy. After he was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to repay $7.4 million, the federal judge overseeing the case ordered him to hand over Shaolin to help pay the restitution.
PleasrDAO says it bought the album from federal prosecutors in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights to the album for $750,000. Last month, the group said it would hold private listening events at an Australian museum, where fans would be able to “experience” certain songs from the album.
But in Tuesday’s lawsuit, PleasrDAO said that Shkreli had unlawfully retained copies of Wu-Tang’s music, and had recently begun threatening to release them to the public.
In April posts on X, he allegedly said “LOL i have the mp3s you moron” and “i can just upload the mp3s if you want?” In May, he allegedly posted an image of a PleasrDAO webpage in which the group said the album would not be available until 2103 and said “look out for a torrent im sick of this shit” – a reference to a method of internet filesharing. On Sunday (June 9), the group says he “played music from the album publicly” over the internet to nearly 5000 listeners.
In their filings, the group argued that the release of the album would cause “incalculable monetary loss,” since the value of the album was based on the “uniqueness” of the single copy: The Album’s potential resale value and the profits that PleasrDAO may earn from playing or exhibiting the music will diminish as the data and files become more widely available.”
In her restraining order later on Tuesday, Judge Chen seemed swayed by those arguments. Saying that PleasrDAO would likely “succeed on the merits” of its case against Shkreli, she ruled that he was immediately barred from “using, disseminating, streaming, or selling any interests in the Album” or “in any way causing further damage to Plaintiff respecting the Album.”
Judge Chen also ordered Shkreli to appear in court on June 25 to explain why she should not issue a more robust injunction. Such an order, the judge said, would require Shkreli to account for any copies he retained, who he distributed them to, and what profits he gained from doing so, and would allow for the seizure of any remaining copies of the album that he might still be holding.