Shkreli Countersues PleasrDAO, RZA Over Wu-Tang Album Rights

Martin Shkreli, the convicted former pharmaceutical executive known as Pharma Bro, filed a countersuit on Monday in Brooklyn federal court against the digital art collective PleasrDAO and Wu-Tang Clan's RZA, escalating a dispute over the copyrights to the group's one-of-a-kind album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.

The lawsuit centers on allegations that RZA, whose real name is Robert Diggs, and producer Cilvaringz, whose real name is Tarik Azzougarh, engaged in a duplicate sale of the album's copyrights. According to Shkreli's legal team, the original 2015 agreement under which Shkreli purchased the album granted him an immediate 50 percent stake in the copyrights, with the remaining 50 percent set to transfer to him in 2103. They claim that in 2024, PleasrDAO paid RZA and Cilvaringz $750,000 for that future interest, effectively allowing the sale of 150 percent of the copyrights overall. Shkreli seeks unspecified damages and profits from the defendants, arguing that an immediate controversy exists over ownership of this future stake.

The album, released in 2015 as a single physical copy encased in an engraved nickel and silver box, was designed by Wu-Tang Clan to remain...