Martin Shkreli Must Turn Over His Copies of Rare Wu-Tang Album, Judge Rules

August 26, 2024 E Jazz Reporter

Music

Attorneys for the disgraced executive argued that he was allowed to retain personal copies even after forfeiting the album to prosecutors, but a federal judge saw things differently.

Lead defense attorney Benjamin Brafman walks with former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli after the jury issued a verdict at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, August 4, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

A federal judge has ordered convicted pharma executive Martin Shkreli to hand over his copies of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, rejecting his claims that he had a right to retain duplicates of the one-of-a-kind album even after he forfeited it to federal prosecutors.

Following a hearing Friday in Manhattan federal court, Judge Pamela K. Chen granted a preliminary injunction to PleasrDAO — a digital art collective that bought the album in 2021 after Shkreli was forced to forfeit it as part of his criminal case.

In addition to extending previous restrictions barring him from sharing the album, the judge ruled that Shkreli must hand over “all recordings of the Album’s contents that Defendant possesses or controls” to his own attorneys. He has until Friday to file written confirmation that he’s done so.

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By granting the motion, Judge Chen rejected Shkreli’s arguments about the copies. In court filings last month, his lawyers argued that making private copies had been legal when he owned the rare album — and that he had not been required to turn those copies over to prosecutors when he handed over the famous original CD.

Pleasr sued Shkreli in June over the potential leak of the album, accusing him of violating both their purchase agreement and the federal forfeiture order. They also accused him of violating federal trade secrets law, which protects valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.

Wu-Tang’s fabled album was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. Though the group intended the bizarre trappings as a protest against the commodification of music, Shaolin later became the ultimate commodity. In 2015, Shkreli — soon to become infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought it at auction for $2 million.

When it was initially sold, Shaolin came with much-discussed stipulations — namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103. But Shkreli’s lawyers say the deal granted him the right to “duplicate or replicate the work for private use.”

After Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited the album to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. Pleasr then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights to the album for another $750,000.

Pleasr, which has recently been attempting to monetize the album, sued Shkreli on the grounds that had been threatening to release the album publicly and destroy the exclusivity that the company had purchased.

In a statement following Friday’s ruling, Pleasr’s attorney, Steven Cooper of the law firm Reed Smith, called the ruling “an important victory” for his client: “We are pleased that Judge Chen recognized that immediate relief was necessary to thwart the continuing bad acts of Mr. Shrkeli.”

An attorney for Shkreli did not immediately return a request for comment.

Following Friday’s ruling, the injunction against Shkreli will be in place until a final ruling is reached at the end of the case. Barring a settlement, the lawsuit will now proceed to full litigation – including discovery, dueling motions from each side, and an eventual jury trial.

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