Abraham ("Avi") Skoff is Quoted in a Law.Com Article Titled, "Did ‘Pharma Bro’ Keep a Secret? Shkreli Must Face Trade Secret Suit Over Wu-Tang Clan Album."
Martin Shkreli, the infamous “Pharma Bro,” must face a trade secrets lawsuit brought by PleasrDAO, the current owner of Wu-Tang Clan’s one-of-a-kind album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. PleasrDAO alleges that Shkreli copied and streamed tracks online in violation of the Defend Trade Secrets Act.
The case tests an unusual legal theory: whether a rare music album can qualify as a protected trade secret. Legal experts say PleasrDAO faces an uphill battle, as it must prove Shkreli took reasonable steps to maintain the album’s secrecy.
The Wu-Tang Clan recorded the album in secret and pressed only one physical copy, which they stored in a vault in Casablanca, Morocco. They later sold the album in 2015 for a reported $2 million. The sale included provisions preventing the buyer from “duplicating, replicating or exploiting the album,” The buyer at the time was secret, but later revealed to be Shkreli, the derogatorily named “PharmaBro” who raised the price of a life-saving medical treatment from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill. He was forced to forfeit the album as part of his securities fraud conviction. PleasrDAO acquired it from the government in 2021 for $4 million and sued in 2024 after Shkreli livestreamed the music to thousands.
How the suit will unfold will rest on what Shkreli actually did with “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” before the album was sold to PleasrDAO, according to Mann. As shared in the lawsuit, Shkreli has publicly stated that he had made MP3 copies of the album, sent it to dozens of people, and played tracks on YouTube and Discord. That will all go before the court, as the album can’t be a trade secret if it’s not secret, said Avi. But how many people must know something before it’s no longer a secret?
“There are plenty of trade secrets where if you play it online to hundreds of people who aren’t subject to confidentiality agreements, that would be enough,” said Avi. “But the [statute] requires that the owners take reasonable measures, not perfect measures.”
While some experts believe the claim will ultimately fail, the case could set new precedent for how courts view trade secrets in the digital age.
