The saga of convicted-felon pharma bro Martin Shkreli and the one-of-a-king Wu-Tang Clan album will seemingly never end. With new developments today, let's recap some of the key twists and turns so far.
In 2014, RZA announced Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, a unique Wu-Tang Clan album. There would only be one copy of the album, and it would be auctioned off for millions, with the stipulation that the buyer could not play it for the public. In 2015, Shkreli, who had recently gained notoriety as a price-gouger, was revealed as the lucky purchaser of this artifact.
When Shkreli was convicted of fraud in 2017, he was ordered to forfeit Once Upon A Time In Shaolin to the federal government. In 2021, the feds auctioned off the album to the cryptocurrency collective PleasrDAO for $4.75 million, a year before Shkreli secured early release from prison. In 2024, PleasrDAO sued Shkreli for allegedly making copies of Once Upon A Time In Shaolin in violation of his purchase agreement. Today, Shkreli is countersuing, and he's named RZA and his musical collaborator Cilvaringz in the complaint.
In a filing Monday night, Shkreli countersued PleasrDAO, Reuters reports. According to Shkreli, his original deal to buy the album specified 50% of the copyright would be transferred to him in 2103, when he would be 120 years old. PleasrDAO paid RZA and Cilvaringz $750,000 for that stake, which Shkreli says amounts to a "duplicate sale," with RZA and Cilvaringz essentially "selling a total of 150% of the copyrights."
"Mr. Shkreli’s approach throughout has been to distract and delay with actions that the court has consistently and strenuously rejected," PleasrDAO's lawyer Steven Cooper told Reuters in an email. "These counterclaims will meet the same fate."
Last September, the court rejected Shkreli's attempt to halt PleasrDAO's lawsuit over his duplication of the album, arguing that the value of Shaolin came from PleasrDAO's "ability to exploit its exclusivity to create an 'experience' that its competitors cannot."
