PleasrDAO members are, well, pretty thissatisfied with Martin Shkreli.
The ‘digital autonomous organization’ spent $4.75 million to buy the legendary Wu-Tang Clan album Once upon a time in Shaolinwhich had been produced as a single copy. The album once belonged to Shkreli, who purchased it outright from Wu-Tang Clan for $2 million in 2015. But after Shkreli became the “pharma brother” The example of price speculation in the pharmaceutical sectorHe ended up in serious legal trouble and served a seven-year prison sentence for securities fraud.
He also had to pay a fine of $7.4 million In that case, the government confiscated 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 curiosity that instantly turned its owners into “interesting people.” The album came in a two-CD set inside a nickel-silver case emblazoned with the Wu-Tang logo, and the complete package included a pair of custom speakers and a 174-page leather-bound book with lyrics and “trivia about the production.”
In a complicated transaction, PleasrDAO purchased the album from an anonymous middleman, who had first purchased it from the government. As part of that deal, PleasrDAO created a non-fungible token (NFT, remember those?) to prove ownership of the album. The New York Times It has a good description What this entailed:
Making copies…
But after purchasing the album and sharing collective ownership of its NFT, PleasrDAO discovered that its “one-of-a-kind” item wasn’t as exclusive as it had thought.
In fact, Shkreli had made copies of the music. Many copies. On June 30, 2022, PleasrDAO said that Shkreli had played music from the album on his YouTube channel, stating, “Of course I made MP3 copies, they’re hidden in safes all over the world… I’m not stupid. I don’t buy something for $2 million just so I can keep one copy.”
Shkreli began mocking PleasrDAO members about the album, telling one of them, “I literally hear 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 girls,” 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 address.” He also told people to “be on the lookout for a torrent” and hosted listening parties for the album on his X account, which reached “potentially over 4,900 listeners.”
We know all these details because PleasrDAO sued Shkreli, alleging that he is acting in violation of the asset forfeiture order and misappropriating “trade secrets” under New York law.
