A federal judge in New York has ordered Martin Shkreli to surrender any retained copies of the Wu-Tang Clan’s exclusive album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin by the end of this week. The ruling comes as the cryptocurrency collective PleasrDAO, which recently acquired the album for approximately $4 million, files a lawsuit against the former pharmaceutical executive. The lawsuit alleges that Shkreli illegally played the album for others after making digital copies.
This legal action follows a previous order directing Shkreli to cease streaming or sharing the album, in accordance with a forfeiture ruling that resulted in the U.S. government’s seizure of the record back in 2017, after Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud. The album, originally conceived by Wu-Tang Clan as a unique piece of art, was re-homed to PleasrDAO in 2022, shortly after Shkreli’s release from prison.
Shkreli’s legal team has responded to the recent court order, stating it is “merely a preliminary measure” aimed at maintaining stability pending further legal discovery. The ongoing lawsuit claims that Shkreli violated the forfeiture order by streaming the album for his social media audience.
Recent developments concerning Once Upon a Time in Shaolin have made the album’s exclusivity somewhat diminished. Earlier this year, the record was played during an exhibition at Australia’s Museum of Old and New Art, and PleasrDAO subsequently released the album as a non-fungible token (NFT), allowing partial ownership that includes access to an album sampler.
At the time of the NFT launch, RZA and Cilvaringz commented on the changes in the music landscape: “Mass replication has fundamentally changed the way we view a piece of recorded music, while digital universality and vanishing physicality have broken our emotional bond with a piece of music as an artwork and a deeply personal treasure.”
