Class action lawsuit attacks Tidal over 'Life of Pablo' exclusivity

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A lawsuit launched Monday accuses Tidal -- along with rapper Kanye West, and Jay Z's Carter Enterprises -- of intentionally misleading people about West's album "The Life of Pablo," which was initially marketed as an exclusive on the streaming service.




The firm behind the suit, Edelson PC, is pursuing the matter as a class action case, arguing that Tidal made the promise solely to save its business, by both harvesting personal data -- such as credit card information -- and causing a spike in traffic and subscribers. Within 10 days, Tidal subscriber figures rocketed from 1 million to 2.5 million, Edelson claims.

Tidal itself has said that "The Life of Pablo" was streamed over 250 million times in its first week.

The case was filed through a U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the Associated Press said, and suggests that Tidal may have made as much as $84 million from misleading claims.

The crux of the suit appears to be a February Twitter comment by West, one of Tidal's owners, in which he said that "Life of Pablo" would "never never never be on Apple," and would in fact stay a Tidal exclusive. By April 1, the entire album was available on Apple Music and Spotify, complete with updated tracks.

Exclusives are now one of the primary competitive weapons in music streaming, employed not just by Tidal but by Apple and Spotify. Apple, for instance, has used Taylor Swift's album 1989 to help lock in listeners.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 23
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    Careful what you tell your customers.  You may be required to stand by your words. 
    phone-ui-guydamonfcalijbdragonicoco3
  • Reply 2 of 23
    wonkothesanewonkothesane Posts: 1,717member
    It would appear that to certain people "never" is a timespan that lasts as long as it takes to say and then forget "only this one phone". 
  • Reply 3 of 23
    jbdragonjbdragon Posts: 2,305member
    Careful what you tell your customers.  You may be required to stand by your words. 
    I wish it stayed exclusive!.  But in the end I guess he would rather make money then staying exclusive.  This lawsuit is just dumb. Cancel service, go somewhere else if you want. 
  • Reply 4 of 23
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    Yeah I noticed the whole album was "on Apple" recently. I noticed this days after I subscribed to a free Tidal trial to hear the album. I should sue Tidal for tricking me.

    Re: Taylor Swift 1989 exclusive
    Bad comparison as this wasn't exclusive to Apple Music. You could still buy it elsewhere. Life of Pablo was supposed to be Tidal stream only.

    In slightly unrelated news Lil Wayne, the face of Sammy's ads made a song where he trashes android.
    poor Sammy never gets a break. XD
    edited April 2016
  • Reply 5 of 23
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    Well, he did lie, so fair enough. 
  • Reply 6 of 23
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,192member
    I predict the defendants will never pay.  :p
    jbdragon
  • Reply 7 of 23
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,309member
    After having seen my second Taylor Swift Apple commercial, I have to say, and I'm not a fan of her genre, that she is a pleasant antidote to Kanye West's narcissism.
    edited April 2016
  • Reply 8 of 23
    koopkoop Posts: 337member
    tmay said:
    After having seen my second Taylor Swift Apple commercial, I have to say, and I'm not a fan of her genre, that she is a pleasant antidote to Kanye West's narcissism.
    His Narcissism is why he's a millionaire and one of the most well known artists in the world. He bottles it and sells it in droves. 
  • Reply 9 of 23
    boltsfan17boltsfan17 Posts: 2,294member
    There is actually enough people to warrant a class action lawsuit? 
  • Reply 10 of 23
    There is actually enough people to warrant a class action lawsuit? 
    Well, they said Tidal subscriber numbers jumped from 1 million to 2.5 million within a short time of the album release.  1.5 million people makes a pretty large class.
  • Reply 11 of 23
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,192member
    koop said:
    His Narcissism is why he's a millionaire and one of the most well known artists in the world. He bottles it and sells it in droves. 
    It's called FMT or fecal microbiota transplant.
    edited April 2016 clemynxmacky the macky
  • Reply 12 of 23
    koop said:
    tmay said:
    After having seen my second Taylor Swift Apple commercial, I have to say, and I'm not a fan of her genre, that she is a pleasant antidote to Kanye West's narcissism.
    His Narcissism is why he's a millionaire and one of the most well known artists in the world. He bottles it and sells it in droves. 
    Oh, please please please let Narcissism be the name of the cologne he sells.
    macky the macky
  • Reply 13 of 23
    revenantrevenant Posts: 621member
    so he might be more than 53 million in debt?
    macky the macky
  • Reply 14 of 23
    clemynxclemynx Posts: 1,552member
    I often disagree with class actions but in this case, Kanye basically advertised his friend's music service and lied. 
    macky the macky
  • Reply 15 of 23
    clemynxclemynx Posts: 1,552member
    koop said:
    tmay said:
    After having seen my second Taylor Swift Apple commercial, I have to say, and I'm not a fan of her genre, that she is a pleasant antidote to Kanye West's narcissism.
    His Narcissism is why he's a millionaire and one of the most well known artists in the world. He bottles it and sells it in droves. 
    The Kardashian sisters are also very famous and rich. That doesn't change that what they do is shit.
  • Reply 16 of 23
    Actually the reason this is an actual legit lawsuit has to do with the whole bait and switch thing. TIDAL and West used West's album with the promise of "sign up to our flailing going out of business any minute service and well promise you not only West's album exclusively but other artists too!

    There's the problem. 

    Its actually TIDAL who should be serving papers to West and sue him. If they do that quickly (and they should) then it looks like they weren't in on this together and TIDAL will look like the victim. but if they don't then this "flip flop" of exclusivity seriously hurts ALL music services because it will make it that much harder to get ANYONE to sign up to any service. 

    Seriously Apple should NOT have allowed this album onto Apple Music or iTunes Store itself. They should not have come near this project with a 10 ft pole. They should have held firm to avoid being associated with this mess. 

    Now its a trust issue. When any service places their reputation on the line promising "exclusivity" to get people to sign up to a service they also need to make sure the contract offered to THEM by that artist is iron clad. TIDAL was going nowhere fast and a lot of rich bitches dumped their cash into this streaming service because it offered to pay the artist (aka themselves) more money. 

    Coming from this industry myself, when I heard that the rIch ARTISTS were creating a service then touted it as "were the service gonna make sure artists get more money..."  I thought "Huh??"  Did no one pick up on this??  Artists like Madonna who don't need any more cash is investing with other trillionairs to make sure they pay themselves more money per streaming and the people signing up are like "yeah!! Artists yeah man totally. Give them more money yeah!!"  Dude? I don't know how to break this to ya but it's YOURS money you're giving them not some corporation collection fees then passing them on to the artists. LOL 

    This is is like that South Park episode where Metallica went on strike!  LOL 

    These new subscribers were lured in and signed up for TIDAL being told by idiots like West (ONE OF THE OWNERS OF TIDAL - hello??) "I'm only letting you have my album bro". The only problem was no one was buying it they grabbed it illegal minutes later. Then that trash with the huge butt he's now married to needed some new clothes and he realize "damn! Inpicked the wrong service to go exclusive with!" so he gives it to Apple with additional/ different songs?  (You do realize you are an owner of tidal and you just screwed yourself jackass?)

    In the music business this is called "double dipping" 
    I think the subscribers may actually win this one. Odd as that sounds. They were lied to - whether by TIDAL, West or both and both promised and given a different product when West changed it giving the new version to Apple when reviews thought the first version (did what he does with his French boyfriend) - SUCK!

    (Hey Apple... In the future when people scream they're not letting you have their product <Adele> when Rhett exhaust their resources don't take tgeir goods. Push it back at them and say "that's ok..." Especially when it turns out it was crappy to begin with  look like the adult in the room and stop caving to greed. 
    edited April 2016 stevenoz
  • Reply 17 of 23
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    I agree with what Kanye originally promised, and I think that the life of pablo or whatever it's called should only be on Tidal, exclusively.

    Humanity needs to be spared from this crap, and this unwanted musical feces should never be allowed on other services, especially not Apple's.

    Hopefully the class action lawsuit is successful so that Kanye's album can remain on Tidal forever, and only on Tidal.
    stevenozmacky the macky
  • Reply 18 of 23
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Meh, I'm not seeing a whole lot of damage here. Anyone who was baited into joining Tidal would barely be out of their free trial. A month of subs maybe? And Tidal costs the same as music, so no one would be out of pocket relatively speaking unless they inexplicably kept subscriptions for both. 

    Kanye could probably mount a reasonable defense that he shoots his mouth off so often that only a fool would believe him.

    Damn good album though.
  • Reply 19 of 23
    zoboomafoo said:
    Oh, please please please let Narcissism be the name of the cologne he sells.
    I certainly hope so - I've already copyrighted "Smells like Pablo"
    macky the macky
  • Reply 20 of 23
    roakeroake Posts: 809member
    koop said:
    tmay said:
    After having seen my second Taylor Swift Apple commercial, I have to say, and I'm not a fan of her genre, that she is a pleasant antidote to Kanye West's narcissism.
    His Narcissism is why he's a millionaire and one of the most well known artists in the world. He bottles it and sells it in droves. 
    He is fundamentally unhappy. People like this usually burn out and are dead within 5-6 years. It's unfortunate. If he gets that 53 million dollars he's been begging for from Mark or Taylor, he might make it a little longer.
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