Disgraced pharma bro, convicted felon, and perennial challenger for America’s Most Hateable Man, Martin Shkreli will have to face a lawsuit for making copies of the Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. US District Judge Pamela Chen issued a decision on Thursday that dismissed some claims by the album’s current owners, PleasrDAO, but will allow the suit alleging “misappropriation of trade secrets” to continue.
Trade secrets might seem like an odd way to describe the most exclusive album ever made, but Chen says in her decision that:
“Trade secrets include all forms and types of business information” so long as the criteria described above pertaining to “reasonable measures” to maintain secrecy and the “independent economic value” from that secrecy are met.
Continuing to say that there was, “no serious debate that the value of the Album… was largely based on its secret and exclusive nature.”
In August, Shkreli was forced to hand over any copies of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, after PleasrDAO (a sort of crypto art collective) sued him for improperly retaining copies of the album and diminishing its value. The group even alleges that Shkreli planned to release his copies which PleasrDAO paid roughly $4 million for in a government auction.
According to the filing by PleasrDAO Shkreli admitted in livestreams that he had made copies of the album and accused him of playing it for his followers. He even supposedly taunted a member of the DAO, replying to a photo of the album with “LOL i have the mp3s you moron.” One thing seems clear, jail time and being forced to hand over one of his most valuable possessions hasn’t made Shkreli any more reserved.
