JAY-Z’s TIDAL Accused Of Cooking Beyoncé & Kanye West’s Numbers, Streaming Giant Responds

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Music mogul JAY-Z‘s TIDAL is catching some unexpected heat. New reports claim the streaming giant might have low-key gassed up streaming numbers for some of its top artists.

According to some intense Norwegian research, reports suggest TIDAL cooked up stats for music heavyweights Kanye West and Beyoncé to increase royalty payouts.

In an extensive report, Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv said it has investigated Tidal’s internal data from a hard drive it obtained that contains “billions of rows” of song titles, user IDs, and country codes, and found that – as translated by Music Business Worldwide – “Beyoncé’s and Kanye West’s listener numbers on Tidal have been manipulated to the tune of several hundred million false plays,” a practice that has “generated massive royalty payouts at the expense of other artists.” The newspaper’s investigation kicked off in 2016, when Tidal claimed that West’s album The Life of Pablo had been streamed 250 million times in its first 10 days, and that Beyoncé’s album Lemonade garnered 306 million streams in its first 15 days. At the time, Tidal reported 3 million subscribers, meaning that every subscriber would have been playing the albums nearly a dozen times a day. (Rolling Stone)

TIDAL has since released a statement to address the hefty accusations.

In a statement provided to Variety, Tidal responded: “This is a smear campaign from a publication that once referred to our employee as an ‘Israeli Intelligence officer’ and our owner as a ‘crack dealer.’ We expect nothing less from them than this ridiculous story, lies and falsehoods. The information was stolen and manipulated and we will fight these claims vigorously.” The quotes reference descriptions of Jay-Z and Tidal COO/Roc Nation executive Lior Tibon in a previous Dagens Næringsliv article, which were technically accurate at one time but are decades out of date. (Variety)

In 2016, Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine shut down rumors about his company looking to acquire TIDAL.

Apple’s appetite for acquiring music streaming services, and the agonies and ecstasies that come along with them, has apparently been satisfied. Squelching reports that have persisted since June, a member of Apple Music’s senior leadership said the company has no current plans to acquire Jay Z’s Tidal or any other rivals. “We’re really running our own race,” Jimmy Iovine, who heads Apple Music, told BuzzFeed News in an interview. “We’re not looking to acquire any streaming services.” (Buzz Feed)

A few years ago, Young Hov and other top-tier entertainers pushed TIDAL as a service to help fellow musicians.

Jay Z and other top names in music – including Madonna, Daft Punk and Coldplay’s Chris Martin – in March 2015 unveiled Tidal, promising to give artists greater control in the fast-growing industry of streaming, which allows unlimited, on-demand listening. The streaming service has sought to win customers by providing original content and early releases from Tidal’s superstar artists including Jay Z, Beyonce, and rapper Kanye West. (Daily Mail UK)

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