Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv has revealed a new investigative report that is bluntly alleging that music streaming service Tidal provided fabricated streaming numbers for artists such as Kanye West and Beyonce. Specifically, the newspaper references the albums The Life of Pablo by West and Lemonade by Beyonce.
Just in case you are scratching your head, the streaming service is of course owned by Jay-Z and the core of the allegations claim that royalty payouts were given to West and Beyonce at the expense of other artists on the service. West is a long-time friend and musical associate of Jay-Z’s and Beyonce is of course his wife; thus perpetuating the alleged conflicts of interest.
The numbers are claimed to be false by over 300 million total plays between the two artists. At the time of West’s album in 2016, the service noted a subscriber list that totaled 3 million, yet the album was streamed over 250 million times in the first ten days of availability. That would have given the album an average of every tidal subscriber listening to the record eight times a day for 10 days straight. Additionally the service claimed that Lemonade was streamed 306 million times in its first 15 days of being available on the service, leaving many in the industry puzzled.
After the newspaper partnered with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s Center for Cyber and Information Security, they determined that 150 million plays of West’s record and 170 million plays of Beyonce’s record were “duplicates” and did not represent real listening activity by subscribers. An attorney for Tidal has claimed that the study was completed under incomplete pretexts and that all of the information was misrepresented.
Tidal gave a statement to Variety and Pitchfork calling the accusations “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.”
Photo Credit: Sharon Alagna
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