The members of PleasrDAO are, well, pretty displeased with Martin Shkreli.
The “digital autonomous organization” spent $4.75 million to buy the fabled Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which had been produced as only a single copy. The album had once belonged to Shkreli, who purchased it directly from Wu-Tang Clan for $2 million in 2015. But after Shkreli became the “pharma bro” poster boy for price gouging in the drug sector, he ended up in severe legal trouble and served a seven-year prison sentence for securities fraud.
He also had to pay a $7.4 million penalty in that case, and the government seized and then sold Once Upon a Time in Shaolin to help pay the bill.
The album was truly “one of a kind”—a protest against the devaluation of music in the digital age and the kind of fascinating curio that instantly made its owners into “interesting people.” The album came as a two-CD set inside a nickel and silver box inscribed with the Wu-Tang logo, and the full package included a pair of customized audio speakers and a 174-page leather book featuring lyrics and “anecdotes on the production.”
In a complicated transaction, PleasrDAO purchased the album from an unnamed intermediary, who had first purchased it from the government. As part of that deal, PleasrDAO created a non-fungible token (NFTs—remember those?) to show ownership of the album. The New York Times has a good description of what this entailed:
Makin’ Copies …
But after purchasing the album and sharing the collective ownership of its NFT, PleasrDAO discovered that its “one of a kind” object wasn’t quite as exclusive as it had thought.
Shkreli had, in fact, made copies of the music. Lots of copies. On June 30, 2022, PleasrDAO said that Shkreli played music from the album on his YouTube channel and stated, “Of course I made MP3 copies, they’re like hidden in safes all around the world … I’m not stupid. I don’t buy something for $2 million just so I can keep one copy.”
Shkreli began taunting PleasrDAO members about the album, telling one of them, “I literally play it on my Discord all the time, you’re an idiot” and claiming that PleasrDAO was concerned about an album that “>5000 people have.” Shkreli claimed on a 2024 podcast that he had “burned the album and sent it to like, 50 different chicks”—and that this had been extremely good for his sex life.
Shkreli even offered to send copies of the album to random internet commenters if they would just send him their “email addy.” He also told people to “look out for a torrent” and hosted listening parties for the album on his X account, which reached “potentially over 4,900 listeners.”
We know all of these details because PleasrDAO has sued Shkreli, claiming that he is acting in violation of the asset forfeiture order and that he is misappropriating “trade secrets” under New York law.