“The Cupertino company did not threaten to sue Jay Z’s Tidal over Drake’s appearance at Lil Wayne’s Lil WeezyAna Fest, a charity concert to benefit kids affected by Hurricane Katrina,” John Paczkowski reports for Buzzfeed. “And it played no apparent role in Drake’s exclusion from Tidal’s livestream of the event — despite Tidal’s claims that it did.”
“Drake’s decision not to participate in Tidal’s live stream of the Lil Weezyana Festival was precisely that — Drake’s decision,” Paczkowski reports. “And sources familiar with the situation tell BuzzFeed News that Apple did not threaten Tidal with any legal action whatsoever — let alone one with $20 million in liabilities attached to it.”
Paczkowski reports, “So why is Tidal very publicly saying otherwise? Not only did the company take to Twitter to lambaste Apple for interfering with its stream, but it also blacked out what would have been Drake’s portion of the stream with a slide lambasting Apple as a Big Brother ‘interfering with artistry.'”
1/2 Apple is interfering with artistry and will not allow this artist to stream. Sorry for Big Brother’s inconvenience.
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) August 29, 2015
2/2 We'll be back after the performance.
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) August 29, 2015
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: So why is Tidal very publicly saying otherwise? Because Tidal is a dismal failure. An utter flop. An industry laughingstock. And they’re desperate for any publicity, whether it’s grounded in truth or not. So, no, Apple did not stop Tidal from streaming Drake’s Katrina benefit performance to their three subscribers.
A desperate flop is not an entity to which to do business. You never know when it’ll fold.
SEE ALSO:
Jay Z’s Tidal music service loses second CEO in six months – June 23, 2015
Why Jay-Z’s Tidal music venture is a complete disaster – May 28, 2015
Jay-Z’s Tidal music service is already a spectacular flop – April 21, 2015
Why Jay-Z’s ‘Tidal’ music subscription service doesn’t matter – March 31, 2015
It just seems like yet another attempt by businessmen to excuse their failures by blaming Apple’s draconian interference. Hey, that’s at least a step up from the days of belittling Apple as an ineffectual niche player. I guess you have to consider it “progress” to move from being Doomed to being Big Brother.
I’m a huge fanboy and audiophile as well. I think Apple should come up with a similar service as Tidal. CD quality sound has always been important to me…. I like Tidal and I subscribe. I hope it can find a way to make it. Instead of Apple associating itself with the ripoff headphones (Beats), they should maybe buy Tidal! Here’s to wishing.
Right. Buy a company that lies publicly. That would be a great investment for Apple.
You represent a negligible portion of the market. While they are many people who are fans of high quality music, their numbers are insignificant.
Vast majority of streaming users are using the service either on their mobile device, or at their desk, while at work. In both cases, the quality of audio components used for listening to this streaming, and more importantly, the ambient noise conditions, make noticing the difference between 128kbps stream and a lossless one practically impossible. Wasting massive amounts of bandwidth, as well as storage, just so that the few people out there could notice the difference on their Denon amps, would be an irresponsible business decision.
If Tidal is the only streaming company to offer lossless audio stream, then it should be able to stay in business servicing users that want lossless. If it can’t stay in business, that will mean that the number of such users is truly negligible.
I think Apple should sue Tidle for $20 million, after the fact, for defamation. You should not lie like that and get a way with it. Sorry, a little pet peeve of mine, blatant dishonesty.
I completely agree Apple should sue them for libel so Tidle can be put out of its misery.
What would that sound like? Sosumi!
Now lets see how many news agencies (I’m looking at you TV news) report this at face value without doing any investigating.
This sounds like a page out of Tim “Apple Ballmer” Cook’s playbook. Use and abuse artists, push out subpar products, fire threats to his mediocre status quo. Cook really is a piece of work. No wonder the best and brightest are leaving Apple in droves. No wonder Apple is scrambling into markets it has no business being in. I predict, as long as Cook is in charge, that we will continue to witness flop after flop. Until the board widens up and fires him, and his lapdog Ive. By that point the damage will have been done, that is if it hasn’t been already.
You are certainly, entitled to your opinion, assuming that you are not a troll, and are a genuine contributor to this forum.
I don’t want any changes. From my angle, apple is firing on all cylinders, their hardware remains best by far, watch is a runaway success, music is the best streaming offering out there… When Steve was alive, he had to deal with a few million users and a small and agile underdog of a company for almost all of his life. Cook is heading the largest market cap in the world that is increasingly often bring called the Big Brother, supporting hundreds of millions of users, most of whom aren’t rabid fans that Steve had to deal with. More importantly, Apple isn’t doing what Disney did after Dianey’s death (“what would Steve do?”). They are doing what Steve suggested — making their own decisions. For every runaway success (iPad, iPhone, iPod…), Steve had an occasional flop (Cube, hockey-puck mouse, MobileMe, Antennagate…). Well, some people tend to believe that Cook shouldn’t be afforded the luxury. While nobody is ignoring flops, I definitely want Apple to hold onto the Cook / I’ve team as long as they wish to stay. There is a reason Apple has remained the largest company in the world four years after Steve’s death, significantly broadening the gap in the years since. Without Cook, it wouldn’t have happened. Look at Blackberry.
If you don’t have a flop or two, then you aren’t pushing the envelope and you’re not trying to advance your products/services. I’ll take the occasional flop from Apple so that I can enjoy the markedly better products they create in every other area they enter.
…”best and britest leave Apple in droves…” ?????!!!
I would like the name of a single ONE of those ‘best and brightest’ that purportedly left Apple “in droves”.
About the only meaningful senior-level departure was Scott Forestall, and that was quite a long ago, and there is a strong debate regarding the value of his contributions today. Most other departures seem to be of the Browett type (i.e. good to see them go). And the net result (departures vs. new arrivals) seem to be heavily in Apple’s favour, with the company poaching top talent from several other companies.
I will still say you are entitled to an opinion, but am more inclined to believe it might just be trolling, rather than an opinion. I may be wrong…
Agreed. A Forestall does not a drove make.
Not to mention Apple is hiring tons of engineers from Tesla (which, to be fair, is hiring Apple engineers) and the auto industry.
What is Tidal? Sounds stupid!
ROTFLMAO!
Come back to reality.
Apple has my permission to hold any and all of his performances.