Disgraced American “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli is facing yet another lawsuit, this time for allegedly retaining and sharing recordings from the rarest album on earth \- the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan LP that he was forced to sell following his 2017 conviction on securities fraud charges.
The lawsuit was brought by a cryptocurrency collective, PleasrDAO, which purchased the only known copy of the album from Shkreli for $4.75 million.
The album, 'Once Upon a Time is Shaolin', has not been released to the public, functioning as a rare contemporary art piece since it was auctioned off by the famed hip-hop group in 2015.
In the lawsuit, PleasrDAO accused Shkreli of retaining digital copies of the album in violation of their deal and disseminating them widely among his social media followers. They point to his recent comments on social media boasting of sharing the digital recordings with “thousands of people.” Over the weekend, Shkreli played portions of the album during a livestream he hosted on X, which he called a “Wu tang official listening party,” according to the lawsuit.
Shkreli is – predictably – remorseless, and has mocked PleasrDAO.
The lawsuit marks the latest episode for the mythic album’s strange narrative. It was created in protest of the devaluation of music in the streaming era, but purchased at auction by Shkreli – the man best known for increasing the price of life-saving HIV drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill.
Shkreli was later forced to sell the album following his conviction of security fraud charges.
PleasrDAO said it bought the physical copy of the album and its digital rights over two transactions, in 2021 and 2024. They said they understood that Shkreli had destroyed any trace of the album’s files.
“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 lawsuit states.
As of last month, the album was headed to the Australia’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), which said it planned to host private listening sessions featuring select tracks from the album.
