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

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.