{"id":2837,"date":"2024-10-02T16:47:36","date_gmt":"2024-10-02T16:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/who-has-copies-of-wu-tang-album-shkreli-tells-judge-he-doesnt-know\/"},"modified":"2024-10-02T17:50:32","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T17:50:32","slug":"who-has-copies-of-wu-tang-album-shkreli-tells-judge-he-doesnt-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/who-has-copies-of-wu-tang-album-shkreli-tells-judge-he-doesnt-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Has Copies of Wu-Tang Album? Shkreli Tells Judge He Doesn’t Know"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Facing a federal court order to turn over all his copies of a rare Wu-Tang Clan<\/a> album, Martin Shkreli<\/strong> is warning a judge that he can\u2019t remember all the people with whom he shared the album \u2013 and that it\u2019s \u201chighly likely\u201d that other people still have copies.<\/p>\n

In August, Judge Pamela K. Chen<\/strong> ordered Shkreli to hand over any copies of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin<\/em>, an ultra-rare Wu-Tang album that he once owned but was forced to forfeit to federal prosecutors to help pay restitution after he was convicted of securities fraud.<\/p>\n

In a sworn statement on Monday, Shkreli promised the judge that he had turned over all copies that he could find in his possession<\/em>. But he also said he didn\u2019t know exactly who he had shared it with, and that some of them probably still have copies.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I shared the musical work several times several years ago, I cannot recall each and every time that I have shared the musical work,\u201d he told the judge. \u201cIt is possible, and indeed I find it highly likely, that one of the many people who viewed, heard, or otherwise accessed the musical work via my social media recorded the musical work and retains a copy of the same.\u201d Best accident lawyer near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Bankruptcy lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Birth Injury lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Bus Accident Lawyers Near Me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Car accident lawyer near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Child custody lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Child support lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Copyright lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Divorce lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Criminal Defense Lawyers Near Me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Drunk driving accident lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Dui Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Elder law Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Employment law Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Estate planning Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Family law Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Foreclosure Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Immigration Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Insurance claims Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Medical malpractice Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Mesothelioma Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0|\u00a0Nursing home abuse Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Personal injury Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Police brutality Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Probate Lawyers near me<\/a>|\u00a0Sexual harassment Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Social security disability Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Tax Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Truck accident Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Workers compensation Lawyers near me<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Best Wrongful Death Lawyers near me<\/a><\/p>\n

Wu-Tang\u2019s fabled album was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. In addition to the bizarre trappings, Once Upon<\/em> came with strict legal stipulations \u2014 namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Shkreli \u2014 soon to become infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications \u2014 bought Once Upon<\/em> at auction for $2 million. But after he was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited it to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. PleasrDAO, a collective of early NFT collectors and digital artists, then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights for another $750,000.<\/p>\n

Amid recent efforts to monetize Once Upon<\/em>, Pleasr sued Shkreli in June after he made threats to release the album publicly and destroy the exclusivity that the company had purchased. The lawsuit accused him of both breaching the federal forfeiture order and violating federal trade secrets law, which protects valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.<\/p>\n

In August, Judge Chen granted Pleasr a preliminary injunction requiring Shkreli to hand over any copies of Once Upon<\/em> that were still in his possession. His attorneys had argued Shkreli had the right to create private copies when he owned the album and could retain them even after he forfeited the original copy, but the judge rejected that argument.<\/p>\n

Responding to the injunction order on Monday, Shkreli told the judge he had \u201csearched my devices, electronic accounts, and other personal effects\u201d and handed over any copies he owned. He swore that he had done so \u201cunder penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Judge Chen\u2019s injunction also included another requirement: That he divulge the \u201cnames and contact information of the individuals to whom he distributed the data and files.\u201d On that front, Shkreli offered less info on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween 2015 and 2021, I recall occasionally sharing the musical work, primarily by sending digital files of the musical work to others via email, [and] also saved copies of the musical work on USB or other drives and gave those drives to others,\u201d Shkreli said, before saying that he \u201ccannot recall\u201d each of those occasions.<\/p>\n

He also told the judge that he had \u201cshared the musical work on my social media pages or livestreams\u201d on at least three occasions, including once in 2023 and again in 2024. It was during these public postings, Shkreli said, that someone likely created copies of the album.<\/p>\n

Both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on Monday\u2019s filing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facing a federal court order to turn over all his copies of a rare Wu-Tang Clan album, Martin Shkreli is warning a judge that he can\u2019t remember all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1860,2744,3660,423,1856,3350,1858],"class_list":["post-2837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-album","tag-copies","tag-doesnt","tag-judge","tag-shkreli","tag-tells","tag-wutang"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2847,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2837\/revisions\/2847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}