Martin Shkreli
Amid a federal lawsuit, a judge says Martin Shkreli must personally go to court and testify under oath about the extent to which he copied and shared Wu-Tang Clan’s rare album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
In a brief ruling Friday (Oct. 11), Judge Pamela K. Chen scheduled a hearing for next month to resolve the issue of what exactly Shkreli did with Once Upon, an ultra-rare Wu-Tang record that he once owned but was forced to forfeit to federal prosecutors after he was convicted of securities fraud.
The judge said the ruling was designed to “resolve the deficiencies” in Shkreli’s previous sworn statements about the fate of the album, in which the pharma exec said he wasn’t sure who might still have copies.
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“Defendant Shkreli will be called upon to testify under oath regarding the copying and distribution of the album’s tracks,” the judge wrote. “Both parties will be permitted to question defendant Shkreli on these issues.”
Wu-Tang’s fabled album was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. In addition to the bizarre trappings, Once Upon came with strict legal stipulations — namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103.
In 2015, Shkreli — soon to become infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought Once Upon at auction for $2 million. But after he was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited it to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. PleasrDAO, a collective of early NFT collectors and digital artists, then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights for another $750,000.
Amid recent efforts to monetize Once Upon, Pleasr sued Shkreli in June after he made threats to release the album publicly and destroy the exclusivity that the company had purchased. The lawsuit accused him of both breaching the federal forfeiture order and violating federal trade secrets law, which protects valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.
In August, Judge Chen granted Pleasr a preliminary injunction requiring Shkreli to hand over any copies of Once Upon that were still in his possession. Shkreli’s attorneys had argued he had the right to create private copies when he owned the album and could retain them even after he forfeited the original copy, but the judge rejected that argument.
Last month, Shkreli told the judge he had “searched my devices, electronic accounts, and other personal effects” and handed over any copies he owned. He swore that he had done so “under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America.”
But he also said he didn’t know exactly who he had shared it with, and that some of them probably still have copies.
“Because I shared the musical work several times several years ago, I cannot recall each and every time that I have shared the musical work,” he told the judge. “It is possible, and indeed I find it highly likely, that one of the many people who viewed, heard, or otherwise accessed the musical work via my social media recorded the musical work and retains a copy of the same.”
Attorneys for Pleasr weren’t pleased. In a response filing days later, they told the judge that Shkreli’s disclosure “falls short” of the judge’s requirements and “raises doubts as to whether Defendant has, in fact, made a good faith effort to comply.”
On Friday, Judge Chen responded with her order requiring Shkreli to appear in court. His attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday (Oct. 14).
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The drama behind Wu-Tang Clan’s one of one album continues. Martin Shkreli has been ordered to surrender his copies of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
As spotted on The Verge the controversial businessman is now being mandated to give up any duplicates he may have made of the 2015 project. This week the new owners PleasrDAO, a organization that focuses on investing and collectibles, filed a claim alleging that the former Pharma Bro “improperly retained copies of data and files”. The filing cited several occasions where he played the album during livestreams post his release from federal prison and forfeiting the work as per his securities fraud conviction.
“On June 30, 2022, during another live stream, Shkreli again played a portion of the Album and again admitted to having retained the Album, stating: ‘of course I made MP3 copies, they’re like hidden in safes all around the world’” the document reads. PleasrDAO also point to several occasions where Martin openly admitted to violating the terms of the sale by sharing the music with his friends and associates even writing on X, formerly Twitter, “i can just upload the mp3s if you want? email addy?”
The presiding judge has given Martin Shkreli until Friday, August 30 to file an affidavit confirming he has turned over all the existing copies he has made of the album. Additionally, he also has document how many copies he made, who he has shared them with and if he has profited from doing so by Friday, September 30.
You can read the court paperwork here.
Convicted pharma executive Martin Shkreli is firing back in a lawsuit over Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, arguing he had a legal right to retain copies of the one-of-a-kind album even after he handed it over to federal prosecutors.
The filing came a month after Shkreli was sued by PleasrDAO — a digital art collective that bought the album in 2021 after Shkreli was forced to forfeit it as part of his criminal case. The company is seeking an injunction barring him from leaking the album and forcing him to turn over any copies.
But in an opposition filing on Wednesday (July 24), Shkreli’s attorneys argued that he had been well within his rights when he made copies of the album before the forfeiture — and that he had not been required to turn those copies over to prosecutors.
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“Defendant continues to have the right to use them to this day,” Shkreli’s attorneys write.
PleasrDAO has argued a leak of the famously secret album would “irreparably harm” its value. But Shkreli’s attorneys say the feds made no promises to Pleasr that they were buying the only copy in existence.
“Plaintiff was well aware that its purchase of assets from did not include any promise or expectation of ‘exclusivity’ or ‘uniqueness,’” Shkreli’s lawyers write. “It bought a copy of a musical work that it knew was not unique, and cannot now claim to be irreparably harmed by the existence of its non-uniqueness.”
PleasrDAO sued Shkreli last month over the potential leak of the album, accusing him of violating both their purchase agreement and the federal forfeiture order. They also accused him of violating federal trade secrets law, which protects valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.
Wu-Tang’s legendary album 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 — soon to become infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought it at auction for $2 million.
When it was initially sold, Shaolin came with much-discussed stipulations — namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103. But Shkreli’s lawyers say the deal granted him the right to “duplicate or replicate the work for private use.”
After Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited the album to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. Pleasr then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights to the album for another $750,000.
In Wednesday’s filing, Shkreli’s lawyers argued that when the government sold the album, it expressly told Pleasr that it would not “assume” any of the promises or guarantees that had been made in Shkreli’s original deal with Wu-Tang — including the claims about the album’s one-of-a-kind status.
“It would be fundamentally unfair for this court to restrict Shkreli from his permitted use of the work after the [government] explicitly disclaimed any warranties, described the assets as being sold “As-Is, Where-Is,” and listed only physical objects to be delivered on the sale of the assets,” his lawyers write.
A hearing on the potential injunction is set for next month. A rep for PleasrDAO’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment.
The blockchain group that sued Martin Shkreli to stop him from releasing Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is itself now selling the famed one-of-a-kind album to the public. But the deal comes with one small catch: buyers can’t actually listen to most of it.
Days after suing the infamous Pharma Bro, PleasrDAO announced Thursday (June 13) that Shaolin was “finally being offered to the public” for just $1 — something of a shocking offer considering the album’s infamous contractual restrictions that say it cannot be widely released until the year 2103.
But the fine print was slightly less exciting: Buyers will only receive an “encrypted” version of Shaolin that they cannot actually listen to. The deal will instead unlock exclusive access to a five-minute audio “sampler” composed of pieces of five tracks; the rest of the album will remain sealed.
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In a phone interview with Billboard on Thursday, members of PleasrDAO confirmed those limitations: “What people are being offered is the ability to own the encrypted album that they cannot listen to,” said Pleasr’s Leighton Cusack. “That will immediately unlock a never-heard-before sampler from the album created by the co-producer of the album.”
Rather than the limitations, Pleasr stressed the other unique element of its sale: Every time someone buys the album, the group says it will reduce the waiting period for the full album’s release by 88 seconds. “It creates this ability for people to decide how much they value music and if they want to have this music released faster or not,” Cusack said.
The sale of any amount of Shaolin, an album famous (and expensive) for its exclusivity, raises big questions. Even if Pleasr’s sale only allows buyers to hear five minutes of the album’s material, wouldn’t the widespread digital release flout Wu-Tang’s famed restrictions? How is it possible?
One possibility is that Pleasr, which bought the album from federal prosecutors after Shkreli forfeited it as part of his 2017 securities fraud convictions, was never subject to those same crazy restrictions in the first place. Another explanation could be that the people who imposed those rules — Wu-Tang rapper RZA and producer Cilvaringz — consented to the project. In social media posts, Pleasr said it had been “working with the original artists and producer” on the sale, suggesting Wu-Tang gave a green light to the project.
Reps for the Wu-Tang Clan did not return requests for comment on their involvement in the project. A press release from Pleasr on Thursday included a quote from RZA and Cilvaringz, but it was excerpted from a statement the duo had released a decade ago.
When asked directly if Shaolin’s stipulations were still in effect, or if the sale complied with those requirements, Pleasr representative Camilla McFarland declined to go deep into the details: “We can’t necessarily discuss the specifics of those agreements and where that all stands, but we can assure you that all of our activities and releases are fully compliant with the consent and blessing of artists and right holders involved,” she said.
Wu-Tang’s legendary album 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 for $2 million.
After Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited the album to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. Pleasr then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights to the album for another $750,000.
When it was initially sold, Shaolin came with much-discussed stipulations — namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103. Though the deal did permit for-profit listening events at museums and other small venues, it strictly forbade duplicating or otherwise exploiting Shaolin “for any commercial or other non-commercial purposes by any means today known or that come to be known during said time period.”
While Shkreli was certainly bound by those terms, it’s less clear if Pleasr was subjected to them when it purchased the album from prosecutors. The original 2015 deal contained a specific provision that, in the event the album was re-sold, the same kooky restrictions must be passed along to the new buyer. But it’s unclear if that requirement survived the album being forfeited as part of a criminal case.
Until Thursday’s digital sale, Pleasr’s use of the album had seemingly stayed within the bounds of the Wu-Tang’s restrictions, with only a series of small in-person events. Last month, the group announced an exhibit at an Australian museum, where fans would be able to “experience” certain songs. And this past weekend, it held a private listening event at the Angel Orensanz Foundation in New York City.
But the new sale would appear to clearly exceed those original rules. Copying the original CD into a digital format and then selling copies across the internet would hardly seem to fit the contract’s original approved venues: “Buyer’s home, museums, art galleries, restaurants, bars, exhibition spaces, or other similar spaces not customarily used as venues for large musical concerts.”
One obvious way for Pleasr to avoid the restrictions would be for the selling party that reached the deal with Shkreli to simply waive their rights to enforce the contract. In a copy of the original agreement attached to the recent lawsuit, the deal was signed by RZA (Robert Diggs) as the founder/chief executive of Wu-Tang Productions, Inc., and by Cilvaringz (Tarik Azzougarh).
When asked if such consent had been granted, Pleasr’s McFarland said: “At the end of the day, I’ll let [RZA] comment on any of that. But of course, we’ve been working with them in order to be able to bring this to life.”
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A new lawsuit claims that convicted executive Martin Shkreli copied and shared a rare album from the Wu-Tang Clan bought by an art collective, violating their deal.
On Monday (June 10), a lawsuit was filed against former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli aka “Pharma Bro” in a Brooklyn, New York, court by digital art collective PleasrDAO. The group claims that Shkreli has violated the deal where they purchased the rare Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin from him by retaining copies of the album and sharing it with his followers on social media, alleging that he’s done so since his release from prison in May 2022.
“Any dissemination of the Album’s music to the general public greatly diminishes and/or destroys the Album’s value, and significantly damages PleasrDAO’s reputation and ability to commercially exploit the Album,” the filing reads. PleasrDAO pointed to recent comments made by Shkreli in posts on social media, particularly on X, formerly Twitter. “I was playing it on YouTube the other night even though somebody paid $4m for it,” one post reads.
The collective also claims that he played parts of the album in a “Wu-Tang official listening party,” in another post on Sunday (June 9). PleasrDAO claimed that they completed the purchase of the physical copy and the digital rights of Once Upon a Time In Shaolin in 2021 and 2024 in two separate deals. Shkreli was forced to sell the album, which he acquired in auction in 2015 for $2 million to pay off a $7.4 million order of forfeiture after his conviction in 2017 for scheming to defraud investors as a drug manufacturer and defrauding hedge fund investors. Shkreli became notorious for hiking the price of Daraprim, the drug his Turing Pharmaceuticals manufactured, from $17.50 per tablet to an astronomical $750 per tablet.
U.S. District Court Judge Pamela Chen issued a temporary restraining order against Shkreli on Tuesday (June 11), blocking him from sharing the album and stating the suit “is likely to succeed on the merits” leading to a possible injunction and seizure of Shkreli’s copies. The rare Once Upon a Time In Shaolin album is currently set to be on display at the Museum of Old and New Art in Australia, which is planning to hold private listening sessions featuring songs from the album this week. Shkreli has so far been defiant online, taunting them in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on the same day and retweeting his followers who joined in the derision.
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.
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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.
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