It seems like Twitter’s importance is growing all the time, from its use as a presidential communication channel to legal defense for our biggest pop stars. In the ongoing legal complication surrounding Kanye and ex-bestie Jay-Z’s streaming service TIDAL, Kanye is using deleted tweets to deny legal claims that he misled fans.
The Life Of Pablo was originally supposed to be a TIDAL exclusive, yet it was very quickly found on both Apple Music and Spotify. Well, because of Kanye’s initial claims of exclusivity, TIDAL’s user-base surged, and many fans spent money under the assumption that was the only way to get the album. One such fan, Justin Baker-Rhett, is suing both Kanye and TIDAL, claiming that the platform tricked people into signing up for its service with false promises. “We fully support the right of artists to express themselves freely and creatively, however creative freedom is not a license to mislead the public,” Baker-Rhett’s lawyer released in a statement.
The “creative freedom” Baker-Rhett’s lawyer is referring to is Kanye’s claim that because The Life Of Pablo was a constantly updating album, the original version is exclusive to TIDAL. Kanye is using tweets from 2016 that call The Life Of Pablo a “living breathing changing creative expression” as justification for these claims. These tweets are currently unavailable because Kanye deleted his Twitter recently, opting to retreat to Wyoming.
The original version of the album is still only available on TIDAL, and according to Kanye, that constitutes exclusivity. Unsurprisingly, representatives for Kanye West and TIDAL did not wish to comment on the incident. Maybe when TIDAL claimed that The Life Of Pablo would “make history” they knew it would one day set the precedent for usage of deleted tweets in a legal defense?
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