“Tidal is under fire once again for allegedly inflating its streaming numbers. This time, it’s for misreporting the amount of plays Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo had by ‘several hundred million’ false plays,” Timothy J. Seppala reports for Engadget. “According to a report (translated) from Swedish newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN), there’s no way that the streaming numbers could’ve been that high without Tidal manipulating its data. More plays meant that the two artists garnered higher royalty payments.”
“The publication received a hard drive brimming with Tidal play data including play times, song titles, user IDs and country codes,” Seppala reports. “DN contacted three subscribers that the data said had played the albums. One supposedly played The Life of Pablo 96 times in a single day, with 54 plays in the middle of the night. The subscriber said that would’ve been ‘physically impossible.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Unless he folded the universe. The Life of Pablo is 66 minutes and one second in length.
Read more in the full article here.
“The consequences of this alleged tampering are seismic,” Tim Ingham reports for Music Business Worldwide. “DN says it has gained access to record company royalty payment reports, which reveal that TIDAL paid Sony in excess of $4 million across April and May of 2016.”
“Of this, Lemonade – a Billboard 200 No.1 album – accounted for $2.5 million, based on the figures reported by TIDAL,” Ingham reports. “It’s a similar case for The Life of Pablo: according to DN, in February and March 2016, TIDAL paid Universal a total of €3.2 million. Of this, The Life of Pablo cashed in around €2 million.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A music service owned by artists that reports numbers upon which artists’ payments are based.
What could go wrong?
Right now they’re writing the story for us. We need to write the story for ourselves. – Jay-Z, at the launch of Tidal in March 2015, referring to the music industry
SEE ALSO:
Beleaguered Tidal subscription music service running out of cash, may close next year – December 13, 2017
Jay Z’s Tidal music service loses its third CEO in two years – May 26, 2017
Sprint buys stake in Tidal Music Service – January 23, 2017
Kanye West tries to goad Apple CEO Tim Cook to buy Tidal – August 1, 2016
Kanye West calls for Apple to buy Tidal, demands executive meeting – July 31, 2016
Apple buying Tidal would be a very savvy move – July 1, 2016
Why the heck would Apple want to buy Jay Z’s Tidal? – July 1, 2016
Why Apple buying Jay Z’s Tidal makes sense – and why it doesn’t – July 1, 2016
Desperate Spotify tries to manufacture an Apple App Store antitrust issue that does not exist – July 1, 2016
Spotify accuses Apple of ‘grave harm’ – July 1, 2016
Apple in talks to acquire Jay Z’s Tidal music service – June 30, 2016