“Kanye West’s troubled release of his latest album, ‘The Life of Pablo,’ has already cost the hip-hop star at least $10 million in sales, a review of estimated pirated downloads on Tuesday revealed,” Richard Morgan reports for The New York Post. “TorrentFreak, which tracks music piracy and file-sharing, reported that West’s album was illegally downloaded more than 500,000 times in the first 24 hours of its Feb. 14 release. West also planned to offer album downloads for $20 on his [website]. If each of the 500,000 persons illegally downloading the album would have bought it for the $20 selling price, Kanye would have pocketed $10 million in revenue.”
“But West changed his mind 24 hours after releasing ‘TLOP,’ and the album was not offered for downloads — even though thousands of fans had ponied up cash for the long-awaited work,” Morgan reports. “By then, social media outlets were ablaze with complaints from customers who had paid Tidal for a download of ‘TLOP’ but never received it. Many frustrated fans also claimed to have been double-billed and, adding insult to injury, hit with inexplicable $1 surcharges.”
“Tidal admitted the download was currently unavailable yet promised a final version of ‘TLOP’ would become available ‘in the next several days.’ Tidal also offered customers a refund if they wanted one,” Morgan reports. “But West, in an apparent contradiction of Tidal, tweeted on Monday: ‘My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Looks like “The Life of Pablum” isn’t going to help dent West’s $53 million debt. And, seeing as how Tidal has a free 30-day trial period, so whatever fans West has can get his album for free anyway, even if they don’t just torrent it, it looks like this thing is a big money-loser all the way around. Aw, gee, that’s too bad.
SEE ALSO:
Kanye West says he’s $53 million in debt and his new album will never ever be on Apple Music or iTunes, only Tidal (whatever that is) – February 16, 2016
Jay Z’s Tidal music service loses second CEO in six months – June 23, 2015
Half of Tidal’s owners may have to pull their own music – May 29, 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
Keep you album off the biggest music store in the world. Must be the act of a genius.
He declared himself a musical genius ya know.:)
Doofus.
TLOP or FLOP?
He should change his name to Les Kardashian.
Brilliant! Even more brilliant if you spell it with a double ‘s.’ i.e., Less
Oh, he makes music?! I thought a GREAT album has talent and creativity…
As this is a surprise…He’s a joke!
If it talks like a turd, acts like a turd, smells like a turd, and looks like a turd, that is what it is. This whiny little bitch needs to go away.
Would someone explain to me why Kanye is so popular? I’ve watched several of his SNL performances and could not perceive any muscial talent on his part. He tends to fill the backstage with legitimate musicians, typically several attractive women playing strings, and has lots of flashing lights, but they do nothing to save his pathetic performances.
Mediocre karaoke performer at best.
This guy is an awful artist. Awful.
“If each of the 500,000 persons illegally downloading the album would have bought it for the $20 selling price, Kanye would have pocketed $10 million in revenue.”
That’s misleading. The only thing TorrentFreak’s data says for sure is how many people were willing to pay $0 for the album. That may indicate how many people want to listen to it, but it provides no clue what percentage of those people would be willing to pay $20 for it. It certainly is not 100% of them.
His title sounds racist. But since he is Kanye and nobody holds him to any accountability, he will get away with it. If he was white, he would have been buried ages ago.
He can’t remain in the limelight due to talent, so he does it by being an outrageous character. Just like the Kardashians.
Who cares about Kanye? But, more importantly, there is no way of knowing what the financial ramifications of this are.
Oh, did I mention, (Who cares about Kanye?)
And he wonders why he’s $52 million in debt. Not the brightest bulb, finance-wise.
——RM
Wait. People actually buy that dreck?
wait… Kanye makes albums?
Don’t Steal From Musicians!
– Not all musicians have massive egos and are stupid enough to blow millions of dollars to the point of bankruptcy. Most of them are excellent people who work hard to make very little from their craft.
– Stealing music just feeds the music execuTards who force such atrocities as DRM (Digital Rights Manglement) down our innocent throats.
– It forces those of us who actually PAY for our media to PAY MORE thanks to crooks eating the profit of the legitimate music industry.
– It kills the ‘Fair Use’ rights we all share by turning media industry execuTards into fascists who demand we, their customers, be treated as default criminals. This default assumption is directly written into the TTP and TTIP treaties #MyStupidGovernment is currently attempting to foist on the world.