Martin Shkreli Copied His $2 Million Wu-Tang Album—and Stuck Them in ‘Safes Around the World’

PleasrDAO members are quite beautiful Are nothappy with Martin Shkreli.

‘Digital Autonomy’ Spent $4.75 Million Buying Wu-Tang Clan’s Legendary Album Once Upon a Time in Shaolinproduced with only one copy. The album once belonged to Shkreli, who bought it directly from the Wu-Tang Clan for $2 million in 2015. But then Shkreli became the “pharmacy guy” Advertising model for price increases in pharmaceutical industryHe got into serious legal trouble and served seven years in prison for securities fraud.

He must too. pay a fine of 7.4 million dollars in that case, and the government confiscated and then sold Once Upon a Time in Shaolin to help pay the bills.

The album is truly “unique”—a protest against the devaluation of music in the digital age and the kind of fascinating curio that instantly turns its owners into “interesting people.” The album comes packaged as a two-CD set inside a nickel-and-silver case emblazoned with the Wu-Tang logo, and the set includes a pair of custom speakers and a 174-page leather booklet with lyrics and “anecdotes about the production process.”

In a complex transaction, PleasrDAO purchased the album from an anonymous intermediary, who had first purchased it from the government. As part of that deal, PleasrDAO created a non-fungible token (NFT—remember that?) to represent ownership of the album. The New York Times have a good description on what this entails:

To tie “Once Upon a Time” into the digital world, an NFT was created to serve as the title deed to the physical album, said Peter Scoolidge, a lawyer who specializes in cryptocurrency and NFT transactions and was involved in the transaction. The 74 members of PleasrDAO … share collective ownership of the NFT deed and therefore own the album.

Make a copy…

But after purchasing the album and sharing joint ownership of the NFT, PleasrDAO discovered that its “one-of-a-kind” item wasn’t as exclusive as it thought.

In fact, Shkreli copied music. A lot of it. On June 30, 2022, PleasrDAO reported that Shkreli played music from the album on his YouTube channel, claiming, “Of course I copied MP3s, they’re like hidden in safes all over the world… I’m not stupid. I don’t buy $2 million worth of something just to keep a copy.”

Shkreli began taunting PleasrDAO members about the album, telling one of them, “I literally play it on Discord all the time, you idiot,” and claiming that PleasrDAO was concerned about an album that “>5000 people have.” Shkreli claimed on a 2024 podcast that he “burned the album and sent it to like 50 different girls”—and that it was extremely good for his sex life.

Shkreli even offered to send copies of the album to random internet commenters if they sent him their “email address.” He also told people to “watch out for torrents” and hosted listening parties on his X account, which “had the potential to reach over 4,900 listeners.”

We know all these details because PleasrDAO sued Shkreli, alleging he was violating the asset forfeiture order and misappropriating “trade secrets” under New York law.