Kanye West cuts ties with Tidal, Jay-Z's '4:44' pops up on Apple Music

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in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV
The same day that the Jay-Z album "4:44" exits Tidal exclusivity, heavy Tidal promoter Kanye West has reportedly cut all ties to the streaming service.




After initial indications suggesting that 4:44 would remain a Tidal exclusive, the Platinum-certified album has popped up on Amazon Music, and Apple Music -- but not on Spotify as of yet. Additionally, while certified Platinum by the RIAA, the means that it obtained that certification doesn't appear to reflect actual listenership to the album.

Platinum records are those albums associated with one million "album units," according to the RIAA. One album purchase, 10 tracks purchased off an album, or 1500 streams of a track on services like Tidal or Apple Music equal one album unit.

However, the status was gained by Sprint's purchase of one million copies of the album according to Billboard, to give away to subscribers. The status was awarded on Sprint's purchase, and not by listener streams.

Also on Friday, high profile artist Kanye West has split with Tidal. Also according to Billboard, a source close to West confirmed that Tidal's exclusivity rights to future music has been terminated, allegedly over Tidal's failure to pay. West claims that Tidal is in breach of contract, and owes him $3 million.

Tidal has also allegedly threatened to sue West over failure to deliver videos.

When Jay-Z relaunched Tidal in 2016, he divvied up minor ownership rights to big-name artists like West, Beyonc, Daft Punk, Alicia Keys, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Chris Martin, Rihanna, Usher, Jack White and others. A number of minority owners have since released albums on the service as windowed exclusives, including West, who begged fans to subscribe after the debut of his last album, "Life of Pablo."

In January, mobile carrier Sprint purchased 33 percent of Tidal, with terms of the deal not known. Around the time of Sprint's investment in Tidal, a report noted that Apple Music provides 13.35 percent of all streaming revenue, with 7.18 percent of the streaming quantity. Tidal held 0.33 percent of streaming revenue at the time, and 0.1 percent of the total streams.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 22
    applesauce007applesauce007 Posts: 1,698member
    With h.265 dominating the AV world by the end of the year, Tidal will become less and less relevant.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 22
    slprescottslprescott Posts: 765member
    The tide is turning...
    wreighvenanton zuykovcornchiplostkiwihmm
  • Reply 3 of 22
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    With h.265 dominating the AV world by the end of the year, Tidal will become less and less relevant.
    I don't follow. How will HEVC alter anything with streaming music at all? And why would this negatively affect Tidal but not other streaming music services?
    edited July 2017 spice-boybadassbriggscornchip
  • Reply 4 of 22
    wreighvenwreighven Posts: 70member
    The tide is turning...
    I see what you did there.  :wink: 
  • Reply 5 of 22
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,403member
    sog35 said:
    talk is cheap.

    these guys will ALWAYS follow the money
    Unlike.... who else?
    spice-boycornchip
  • Reply 6 of 22
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Tidal is being flushed down the drain.
    macky the macky
  • Reply 7 of 22
    Soli said:
    With h.265 dominating the AV world by the end of the year, Tidal will become less and less relevant.
    I don't follow. How will HEVC alter anything with streaming music at all? And why would this negatively affect Tidal but not other streaming music services?
    Tidal tries to separate themselves from the pack with  "HiFi audio" for $19.99/month.  
  • Reply 8 of 22
    With h.265 dominating the AV world by the end of the year, Tidal will become less and less relevant.
    That will be quite a feat!  Tidal is about as irrelevant as it can get.  
    cornchipwatto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 22
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    Saw Jay Z's album show up last night on my AppleTV. Didn't think much about it since "exclusives" last about a week nowadays.

    Love him or hate him Kanye is a huge artist and Apple can hopefully lure him in.
    Give him a documentary, a Beats 1 show, fund some great videos+an exclusive album for $3 million. That'll make everyone happy. 
  • Reply 10 of 22
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    With h.265 dominating the AV world by the end of the year, Tidal will become less and less relevant.
    That will be quite a feat!  Tidal is about as irrelevant as it can get.  
    Tidal allows you to buy concert tickets which is nice. Apple should play hardball and announce free HiFi upgrade to subscribers this holiday along with Siri features such as asking for convert tickets and if they're touring etc.

    instead I get this stupidity from Siri when listening to an artist.



    Ammounce it this holiday season. What does this coincide with?
    HomePod.
  • Reply 11 of 22
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    Soli said:
    With h.265 dominating the AV world by the end of the year, Tidal will become less and less relevant.
    I don't follow. How will HEVC alter anything with streaming music at all? And why would this negatively affect Tidal but not other streaming music services?
    Tidal tries to separate themselves from the pack with  "HiFi audio" for $19.99/month.  
    Again, what does HEVC have to do with audio?
    badassbriggs
  • Reply 12 of 22
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    Soli said:
    Soli said:
    With h.265 dominating the AV world by the end of the year, Tidal will become less and less relevant.
    I don't follow. How will HEVC alter anything with streaming music at all? And why would this negatively affect Tidal but not other streaming music services?
    Tidal tries to separate themselves from the pack with  "HiFi audio" for $19.99/month.  
    Again, what does HEVC have to do with audio?
    Good question...h.265 is for VIDEO, not audio....
    Solibadassbriggs
  • Reply 13 of 22
    spice-boyspice-boy Posts: 1,450member
    sog35 said:
    talk is cheap.

    these guys will ALWAYS follow the money
    "these guys" the only 2 men in America looking for more money? 
    cornchip
  • Reply 14 of 22
    jcs2305jcs2305 Posts: 1,336member
    Soli said:
    Soli said:
    With h.265 dominating the AV world by the end of the year, Tidal will become less and less relevant.
    I don't follow. How will HEVC alter anything with streaming music at all? And why would this negatively affect Tidal but not other streaming music services?
    Tidal tries to separate themselves from the pack with  "HiFi audio" for $19.99/month.  
    Again, what does HEVC have to do with audio?
      I don't think he realizes it's a video codec....
    badassbriggs
  • Reply 15 of 22
    jcs2305jcs2305 Posts: 1,336member
    sog35 said:
    talk is cheap.

    these guys will ALWAYS follow the money
    Kanye is an investor. He gave it 2 years, it wasn't making him money so he cut ties, Wouldn't you do the same thing as an investor?

     I believe Tidal also owes him money ( as an artist )  from his last album and some music videos as well..
  • Reply 16 of 22
    thrangthrang Posts: 1,007member
    Low tide...
    SpamSandwichlostkiwi
  • Reply 17 of 22
    cornchipcornchip Posts: 1,945member
    spice-boy said:
    sog35 said:
    talk is cheap.

    these guys will ALWAYS follow the money
    "these guys" the only 2 men in America looking for more money? 
    LoooOOo00LL
  • Reply 18 of 22
    spice-boyspice-boy Posts: 1,450member
    cornchip said:
    spice-boy said:
    sog35 said:
    talk is cheap.

    these guys will ALWAYS follow the money
    "these guys" the only 2 men in America looking for more money? 
    LoooOOo00LL
    Keep trying someday you might learn to write a complete sentence.
  • Reply 19 of 22
    lorin schultzlorin schultz Posts: 2,771member
    Soli said:
    With h.265 dominating the AV world by the end of the year, Tidal will become less and less relevant.
    I don't follow. How will HEVC alter anything with streaming music at all? And why would this negatively affect Tidal but not other streaming music services?
    Tidal tries to separate themselves from the pack with  "HiFi audio" for $19.99/month.  
    Audio consumers are weird. In a discussion of the Homepod, people were asking if it supports lossless audio, as if the subtle improvement would even be audible on a little $350 wireless speaker. My friends who buy exotic audio equipment use it to listen to vinyl, a format beaten only by cassettes for sonic limitation.

    That means the guys with the high-quality source material are defeating it by listening on crap gear, and the guys with the good gear are defeating it by listening to crap source material.

    No wonder no one goes broke selling snake-oil audio cables... the market doesn't seem to be defined by critical reasoning!
    SpamSandwich
  • Reply 20 of 22
    holyoneholyone Posts: 398member
    Guess any hopes for another Throne Album is now most defenetly out of the question, dang it, and these two where getting along so well for a while there, Rap quarrels can get so tiresome some times , but business is business I suppose, but how can some one not be payed his own company, surely Ye can just call Jay up and go " Yo man where my money at" and Jay be like " man what money ?, you know we ain't sold shit, we got like 3 million ears, so stop calling at 3 in the morning I got brand new twins " and then Ye can go like " fuck its 3 ?, man!!!, do you think we can still get that deal with Apple ?"
    cornchip
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