Disgraced pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli has filed a counter-lawsuit against Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA, claiming ownership of copyrights to the rare album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. The filing comes amid ongoing disputes following the album's seizure and sale to PleasrDAO. Shkreli alleges improper resale of rights without his knowledge.
The saga surrounding the Wu-Tang Clan's one-of-a-kind album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, has escalated with a new federal court filing by Martin Shkreli against RZA, born Robert Diggs, and producer Cilvaringz, whose legal name is Tarik Azzougarh.
Shkreli, convicted in 2017 of securities fraud related to his company Turing Pharmaceuticals, purchased the album for $1.5 million in 2015 through a complex agreement. He describes the deal as 'bifurcated' into tangible items—a two-disc set in an engraved nickel-silver box, a gold-leafed certificate, and a leather-bound manuscript—and intangible rights, granting him immediate 50 percent ownership of the copyrights, with the remaining half due in 2103, 88 years later.
Federal authorities seized the album after Shkreli's conviction and auctioned it in 2021 for $4 million to digital art collective PleasrDAO to compensate fraud victims. Shkreli now contends that RZA and Cilvaringz wrongly reclaimed and resold the copyrights during his legal troubles, leading to what he calls a 'duplicate sale' to PleasrDAO. In his 35-page filing, he seeks a declaratory judgment affirming his copyright ownership and argues the album is not a protected trade secret.
The counterclaims respond to PleasrDAO's June 2024 lawsuit accusing Shkreli of retaining unauthorized copies, potentially for public release. A federal judge recently allowed that case to proceed to trial, recognizing the album as a possible trade secret. PleasrDAO's lead lawyer, Steven Cooper, dismissed Shkreli's move: “Mr. Shkreli’s approach throughout this case has been to distract and delay, with actions that the court has consistently and strongly rejected. These counterclaims will meet the same fate. They are untimely, non-cognizable, and oddly, claim that Mr. Shkreli retained rights to the album when he was under a court order to forfeit all of his rights in his criminal prosecution.”
RZA has previously expressed regret over the sale, telling Rolling Stone, “It was hard for me to sell that album because I wanted it to be on my living room table.” PleasrDAO has aimed to share the album with fans via NFTs, with Chief Pleasing Officer Jamis Johnson stating in 2021, “We want this to be us bringing this back to the people. We want fans to participate in this album at some level.” Efforts to contact lawyers for RZA and Cilvaringz were unsuccessful.