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Martin Shkreli Accused of Copying and Sharing One-Of-a-Kind Wu-Tang Album in New Lawsuit
(www.rollingstone.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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WuTang didn't make an NFT. They recorded an album that had no public release, and sold the only existing copy to a single buyer like a painting.
This was kind of a slap in the face to their fans and what music is, but this was long before NFTs were a thing.
Who else is betting the album just isn't very good?
Either way it feels like Wu-Tang is on the wrong side of the class war on this one. The fine art comparison is bullshit. At least fine art owned by individuals is often showcased for public viewing because everyone knows that a print, photo, or public exhibition is not the same as owning the original.
I'm sure Wu-Tang thought they were just exploiting the upper class money laundering system for their own gains, but that just makes them court fools, not revolutionaries.
Well they are showcasing it in at least one public exhibition at a gallery this year, so the comparison to fine art is pretty good.
But I definitely agree that it's a shitty move of them, especially with their working class roots. They sold the album for what isn't a great deal of money, $2million, so they either thought it was terrible or they were in a desperate financial situation and needed a quick win. It goes so much against their ethos that fans spread rumours that there was a greater plan where Bill Murray would steal the album back in an elaborate heist and then release it.
I do think that RZA, the group member who led the sale, truly believed in his own bullshit about this being a piece of art but I can see the other group members just having bills to pay and families to feed. Considering they split the money 9-12 ways (depending on the group's configuration at the time) and not including engineers and studio time, I don't know how much each individual member benefited.
They also tried to buy it back from Shkreli, publicly threatened him when they learned what kind of guy he really was and had to donate a lot of the money from the album's sales to charity just to try to wash some of the stink off. So this whole stunt seems to have backfired on them.
... but if it leaks online, they know which rich asshole to sue.
I’m aware of the album lol. It’s been in headlines for years, pretty much any time Shkreli comes back into the spotlight. But actually, the methodology/technology behind NFTs has been around for a while. It predates the album.