Its a fascinating story, Shkreli is a character to say the least.
There is a very poor quality recording of Shkreli playing it on stream available on a shady file sharing site near you. Sounds interesting but probably not worth the flight to Tasmania (as per article, there are listening sessions available at MONA) or waiting 79 years for the crypto crew to cash in.
considering the whole thing is produced by cilvaringz, id bet anything the tracks to be average to sub. dude does have some dope production credits ie raekwon shaolin vs wutang album for example. but overall dude isnt worth millions of dollars of hype. bronze nazareth is a much more accomplished wu-associated producer and much closer to the 'sound' and still probably uses public transit. (school for the blindman album for example)
after all is it a real wu-tang album if it isnt produced by RZA?
Hopefully Shkreli nuts up, chances some more jail time, and releases his copy so these crypto freaks get some amount less than they would've had it not been free. I know the article says they're "in talks" with the artists but I don't believe for a second that the people who actually did the work will get what they deserve for having made it, or even close to what these vampires will get for shitting on the original point of the album.
> I don't believe for a second that the people who actually did the work will get what they deserve for having made it
The people who actually made it chose to sell exclusive rights to one person instead of releasing it like a normal album. They've got no room to complain.
They didn't choose to sell exclusive rights to one person, they wanted the sale of the album to roughly follow the old patronage model of funding. The idea was that their patron would give them money upfront for the artistic output and then exhibit it to flex their wealth and good taste. They specifically didn't want the buyer to buy it and then sell it themselves with the artist getting a pittance relative to the overall proceeds, which is why the purchase agreement had an 88 year non-commerical-exploitation clause. Shkreli largely keeping the album to himself probably isn't what they had in mind, but what the current owners are doing is without a doubt pissing on the original terms of sale and the reasoning behind them. They have all the room in the world to complain, but they're probably not going to win any legal argument against crypto shysters with huge amounts of money, so they might as well get what they can out of it.
Not every desire can be encoded into a legal and transactional text.
Laurence Lessig, Creative Commons founder in Code 2.0 (1999) identifies four elements that regulate behavior online: Laws, norms, markets, and technology
- *Code/architecture* – the physical or technical constraints on activities (e.g. locks on doors or firewalls on the Internet)
- *Market* – economic forces
- *Law* – explicit mandates that can be enforced by the government
- *Norms* – social conventions that one often feels compelled to follow
So even if you sell something, you can still complain about it. Unless of course they explicitly signed a “I won’t complain about this” clause.
I think the reason the commenter was pointing out that Wu won’t be getting paid is that the average person might not know that. And the people making money not the situation aren’t exactly incentivized to raise awareness.
Part of the wild history is that following Shkreli's conviction for securities fraud the album was seized and the DOJ had it for 3 years until they auctioned it for $4M (2x Shkreli paid at the original auction).
Last weekend, had a listening event at the Angel Orensanz Foundation, where they took the original photos for the 36th Chambers album release. Was a cool experience.
the most mysterious and expensive album of all time was announced by theWu-Tang Clan as a protest against the devaluation of creativity in the age of the internet
In regards to a top-earning artist with a secure position, "devaluation" here sounds a lot like "demonetization".
So was WTC protesting how the internet negatively impacted gatekeeping and artist anointing - and how the internet allows more small artists to get a foothold?
I posted because the entire thing is so fascinating from distribution, legal rights, to the unimaginable chain of custody/ownership (which included the Department of Justice who auctioned it to the current owner).
In addition to what you quoted it is said it was also inspired by musical patronage in the Renaissance. I’m sure there is some truth to all of the above but also just marketing.
It originally sold at auction for $2M, and I would imagine/hope they could have made multiples that through a standard release.
> It originally sold at auction for $2M, and I would imagine/hope they could have made multiples that through a standard release.
It is my experience that once folks achieve wealth thru copyright, they fixate on controlling their IP. Both money and control override nuance-based sense and social good but control will commonly trump money.
I don't know WTC and am not speaking to their specific motivations - beyond suggesting this copyright profile could be in play.
The crypto leaderboard makes me not trust the site to pay $1. It is also a complete unknown if the current owner will remain the owner long enough to make good on this.
I’ve found everything about this album frustrating and unpleasant. At this point, I don’t think there will be anyway for it to not be a disappointment.
If the owner were not allowed to make backup copies, would it have been better to release that album as a set of vinyl records instead of 2 CDs? I am just wondering if an analog medium would be more likely to remain useful after ~80 years of physical degradation compared to digital discs.
A lot can happen in 88 years. With only one copy, there is a reasonable chance that this album will be lost to time. Even if the label has a copy sitting in a vault to release it in 88 years, who’s to say that label will even still be around. So many things could happen.
I get they are trying to make a point, but the idea of music being exclusive, just seems wrong. They want to make it like art… I don’t have to go to France to see the Mona Lisa, there are pictures of it online. I only have to go to a museum to see the real thing. It seems like a concert would be the museum of the music world. There shouldn’t be listening parties at museums, Wu-Tang should go on tour. If people want to hear the new songs, they can see them performed live.
> I don’t have to go to France to see the Mona Lisa, there are pictures of it online.
True but the Mona Lisa was painted around 1500, so it was about 500 years before the work was digitized and widely available online. There were prints before the internet, but that’s not exactly the master’s work.
I think the music/art should be freely available, but I’ve also been talking about this album for 10 years and until yesterday hearing the 5 minute sampler for the first time, I had never heard a second of it.
Thanks, I emailed Dang to update the url to the “lore” subpage.
The linked website is the official site of the Album owner. The homepage simply shows a countdown clock to the release date of the album originally scheduled for 2103, but the release date/clock is being reduced in real-time based on album purchases.
This Album is the highest selling album of all-time, it only had 1 physical copy made, and the ownership history is just as interesting. For more info on the Album here is the Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_Shaolin
Thanks! I tried clicking around the various links and nothing seemed to happen apart from popups trying to get me to enter my wallet information, so I assumed it was just some kind of crypto-scam leaderboard.
I've now read the other article, and it's fascinating. Somehow I missed the story about the arrest and this album at the time...
Ah yes, an amazing source where you can only read it if you're duped into signing up for a 12 month commitment to them for the pleasure of watching your pocket book sucked dry.
Both the /lore page and the wikipedia article provides more information about it for free than the NYT does.
Shkreli has actually sent the album to various people. He used to used to send it to any girl who asked for it back in the day. It's not that exclusive. Also according to Martin, now that he has sold the album, the album is mediocre.
This would be interesting as an auction with a reserve price as well as a marketing mechanism. The artist says I need to make at least $x. People can pay $1 to the artist to either increment or decrement $x by $1. Album drops for everyone when $x decrements to zero. If the auction expires without hitting $0 the artist can recut/release the contents in some other form after returning the money to those who committed it to the auction.
Swift could make a killing. Anyone who is loved and disliked could novelly monetize the dislike.
Also, fun smart contract. The $0 condition drops some decryption key for pre-released-but-encrypted content.
The cost to the owner if the release never happens is zero, so he just needs to match whatever $n is the total that everyone else has paid and gets to keep $2n, so the $n is profit that can never result in the album being released.
In other words, the ability to decrement the current price as well, effectively lets the owner set the release price to any arbitrary value above the original stated value, without any oversight or recourse for the people who have already paid.
I am not sure I agree with you if the haters always pay and the lovers pay only when the album drops (see my child suggestion to the idea post).
Artist sets the reserve to $x. Artist hates against themselves to $x + $y at a cost of $y.
Case 1) Auction goes to $0. Artist therefore makes $x from others and $y from "self-hate" netting $x, the original reserve.
Case 2) Auction does not go to $0. Lovers get their money back. Haters do not. Artist recups $y from self-hate and is even on the transaction. Up, actually if there were other haters.
What broke?
The artist driving up the price via $y seems to be net zero aside from reducing the chances that the auction goes to $0. But recall, the artist wants to make money so reducing those chances isn't in their interest.
The other haters got to hate. Purely Lulz. So their got their money's worth.
The lovers did not get an album but their money was returned.
You're right that the artist could force an album to not be released. But, recall they pre-dropped the files and are only releasing a decryption key. And the artist does not have infinite money to avoid being exposed as a fraud if the encrypted stuff turns out to be pure crap. There's real reputational risk.
If the nominal price is $x at the start and needs to drop to 0 before it'll sell, then the seller can artificially sell at a price higher than $x, by simply putting his own money $n into sale, so in this case the sale happens after the seller lets the total value drop to zero, at which point purchasers have paid $x+$n and the seller has also "paid" $n. However, as the seller is paying that $n to himself, that hasn't cost him anything, but he still nets $x+$n from the paying customers rather than the $x it was presented as.
The seller can do this as long as they like if there is no bound on the auction time, he can e.g. roughly match contributions to keep the price above 0 and at the point it seems like people are losing interest and no more bids are likely, he can then "pay" the difference himself to force the sale through (remember, he'll get this back anyway).
There's even a third option - on a time limited auction, maybe the money raised is already higher than they think they'd ever realistically get if the auction was repeated, or sold elsewhere, but still not at the $x threshold, the seller can just pay the difference, knowing they'll get it all back themselves anyway.
In every case, the seller is in complete control of when, or even if, the sale actually happens and for any price they want, regardless of the originally advertised price. There is no scenario where allowing people to bid to reduce the cumulative value of the auction (your "haters") can ever be fair on the other bidders (your "lovers").
> However, as the seller is paying that $n to himself, that hasn't cost him anything, but he still nets $x+$n from the paying customers rather than the $x it was presented as.
I don't follow...
For every $1 the seller puts in as a hater the seller always nets exactly $0 under the rule that haters always pay. $1 of hate spend by the seller goes back in the seller's pocket. Net $0.
For every $1 the seller puts in as a lover the seller nets $0 under the rules that either the album sells or the lovers don't pay. Net $0.
It is true the seller can artificially inflate $x + $n for $0 cost to themselves (because the $n goes back in their pockets). But they cannot inflate the money they receive through their own actions. This is essentially the illegal act of "painting the tape" in securities markets, namely making it look like meaningful economic activity is happening when none in fact is.
> ...he can then "pay" the difference himself to force the sale through
Sure. No self-dealing is precluded.
The seller could also give the album away for free outside the auction, anytime.
How would a smart contract release a decryption key at some point in the future without external input like this? Couldn't someone just fork the chain and manipulate it with arbitrary amounts of self-mined ether?
There is a very poor quality recording of Shkreli playing it on stream available on a shady file sharing site near you. Sounds interesting but probably not worth the flight to Tasmania (as per article, there are listening sessions available at MONA) or waiting 79 years for the crypto crew to cash in.