A federal judge has ordered “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli to surrender his rare copies of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, as part of an ongoing lawsuit.
In 2015, Martin Shkreli made a $2 million bid to win the album as part of an auction put on by the Wu-Tang Clan, as part of an idea of selling the art as artwork in an effort to “forge a new model of support for pop music.” When it was revealed that it was Shkreli who made the winning bid, there was considerable public blowback.
In 2017, he was ordered to forfeit the album due to his criminal fraud conviction. It was then seized by the US government and sold to PleasrDAO, a group of digital art collectors and crypto investors, who purchased it for $4.75 million in 2021.
In June 2022, Shrekli was alleged to have played the album on a livestream from a copy he had made, breaking any legal agreements made not to do so. It was because of this that PleasrDAO sued Shkreli, due to potential leaks of the album and violating purchase agreements and the federal forfeiture order back in 2017, where he agreed to surrender the album. After a hearing in a Manhattan federal court, Judge Pamela Chen granted a preliminary injunction to PleasrDAO.
The rare Wu-Tan Clan album was recorded in secret as the group intended for it to be a protest against the commodification of music. Ironically, the album ended up becoming a commodification of music after Shkreli bought it an an auction worth $2 million.
“Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli earned his fortune by artificially increasing the price of HIV medication, thus earning him his nickname. The injunction will be in place until a final ruling is ultimately decided. The lawsuit will proceed to litigation, assuming there are no settlements.
