

Federal release of the album "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" by the Wu-Tang Clan


Federal release of the album "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" by the Wu-Tang Clan
The Issue
Alright for those of you who don't know there's these sick beats that are being held back by this rich and currently jailed pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli’s.
Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is a unique record: only one copy exists, in a silver-and-nickel-plated box with 174-page liner notes bound by hand in leather. By the terms of the sale, whoever owns the sole copy can legally do whatever they want with it, aside from releasing it commercially; there’s an 88-year ban on that. So the owner could hold exclusive listening parties or even release the album for free. It’s not clear whether the terms of the original purchase agreement can bind the government or any future buyer. Shkreli claimed to have already sold the album in September, but the buyer hasn’t stepped forward and it’s pretty unclear whether there was a hand-off. The government doesn’t care. It will take either the album or any proceeds.
There would be a kind of poetic justice for the Wu-Tang album to be set free and made freely available to the American public at large. Given, you know, that it’s being forfeited by a real-life Bret Easton Ellis character who built his fortune on an inhumane system that profits from the demand for life-saving drugs. But maybe the next owner of the album will be more pro-social and just upload the damn thing to the internet already.
The Issue
Alright for those of you who don't know there's these sick beats that are being held back by this rich and currently jailed pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli’s.
Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is a unique record: only one copy exists, in a silver-and-nickel-plated box with 174-page liner notes bound by hand in leather. By the terms of the sale, whoever owns the sole copy can legally do whatever they want with it, aside from releasing it commercially; there’s an 88-year ban on that. So the owner could hold exclusive listening parties or even release the album for free. It’s not clear whether the terms of the original purchase agreement can bind the government or any future buyer. Shkreli claimed to have already sold the album in September, but the buyer hasn’t stepped forward and it’s pretty unclear whether there was a hand-off. The government doesn’t care. It will take either the album or any proceeds.
There would be a kind of poetic justice for the Wu-Tang album to be set free and made freely available to the American public at large. Given, you know, that it’s being forfeited by a real-life Bret Easton Ellis character who built his fortune on an inhumane system that profits from the demand for life-saving drugs. But maybe the next owner of the album will be more pro-social and just upload the damn thing to the internet already.
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Petition created on May 10, 2018

