American investor and former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli has asked a Brooklyn federal court to dismiss claims against him by the NFT collective PleasrDAO over the ownership of a rare recording by the legendary hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan.
The move is the latest episode in a saga that began in June 2024, when PleasrDAO sued Shkreli, claiming he illegally made and kept copies of a one-off album called Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
The Wu-Tang Factor
Shkreli’s January 6 filing wants the NFT group’s complaints against him thrown out as they are “preempted by the Copyright Act.” If the case should go on, then the ex-convict wants two members of the Wu-Tang Clan, Robert Diggs, also known as The RZA, and Tarik Azzougarh, who goes by Cilvaringz, to be included in the proceedings because they co-own the album.
Shkreli initially purchased the secretive project in 2015 for $2 million at a private auction. Only one copy was made under a contract whose terms prevented the album’s public release until 2103.
However, authorities seized the recording in 2018 following the pharma executive’s arrest after accusations of cheating investors and engaging in a stock fraud scheme involving his company, Retrophin Inc. Upon being found guilty, he was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay a $75,000 fine and $7.3 million in forfeiture.
The album was put on sale to help pay off the debt to the government, with PleasrDAO buying it for $4.75 million in July 2021, after which it announced that it would mint the recording into an NFT. Nevertheless, in 2022, Shkreli was videoed playing the supposedly exclusive music on his YouTube channel, saying that he had made several copies of it and had hidden them in safes around the world.
The businessman then started taunting the album’s rightful owners, PleasrDAO, reportedly telling them he plays the music on his Discord all the time. He also hosted listening parties for the recording on his X account, purportedly reaching nearly 5,000 people.
Fight Over Music Ownership
On June 10, 2024, PleasrDAO sued Shkreli, alleging that his actions had caused the collective significant monetary harm, decreasing the album’s marketability and value. While the investor claims his initial purchase agreement allowed him to keep 50% of the copyright even if he sold the actual physical album, PleasrDAO has insisted that their purchase included an agreement where he forfeited all his rights, titles, and interests.
In August, a New York judge ordered the former drug firm executive to turn over all copies he’d made of the 31-track album and sign an affidavit affirming that he no longer had any in his possession.
Still unsatisfied, the NFT group wrote a letter to the judge, stating its worry that the businessman had not handed over all the copies of the album and asked that he do a deeper search. Shkreli’s lawyers say he made an effort to comply with a list of additional searches requested by PleasrDAO but acknowledged that he may have failed to conduct some of them.
The ex-convict recently made headlines after claiming to be the co-creator of a Donald Trump-themed meme coin, DJT, whose authenticity had been questioned amidst accusations of insider trading.
