It took a while, but TIDAL finally pulled through all the controversy of revolving CEO’s and reports of bankruptcy to keep things quiet for a minute. But this week, they found themselves in some hot water, with reports claiming that they have been manipulating and inflating streaming numbers for Kanye West and Beyonce albums on their service. Norwegian University of Science and Technology claims to have found this information on a hard drive featuring song data.
The reports said that LEMONADE and The Life of Pablo received “fake playbacks” which resulted in larger payouts for Queen Bey and Yeezy.
TIDAL responded to these allegations today:
“This is a smear campaign from a publication that once referred to our employee as an ‘Israeli Intelligence officer’ and our owner [JAY-Z] 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.”
Interestingly, TIDAL does not report numbers to Nielsen Soundscan.
OS REWIND: Nipsey Hussle Exposes Payouts for Apple Music, Spotify, TIDAL & More
[Source]