TIDAL MUSIC MANIPULATION:
Service bloated numbers: report
TIDAL IS FACING a wave of accusations the music streaming service falsified numbers in order to boost payouts for artists.
The company, which is partially owned by rapper Jay-Z, deliberately manipulated data for Beyoncé’s album “Lemonade” and Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo” to falsely inflate streaming numbers by hundreds of millions of plays, according to a report from Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv.
The report, which was translated by Music Business Worldwide, claims it investigated Tidal’s internal data by obtaining a hard drive that contained “billions of rows” of song titles, user IDs and country codes.
Dagens Naeringsliv sent the data to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s Center for Cyber and Information Security, which analyzed the information and produced a 78-page report.
The investigation was launched in 2017 in response to what seemed like dubious claims about streaming counts.
In 2016, Tidal said “The Life of Pablo” had been streamed 250 million times in 10 days when it was exclusively available on the platform.
Months later, it claimed that “Lemonade” was streamed 306 million times in the 15 days after the album’s release.
Tidal said it had 3 million subscribers at the time, meaning all of its customers would have needed to stream each album seven or eight times a day, on average.
The several hundred million allegedly inflated plays “generated massive royalty payouts,” the report claims.
According to record company royalty payment reports obtained by Dagens Naeringsliv, Tidal paid Sony $2.5 million for “Lemonade” streams during April and May 2016, with $2.3 million in royalties going to the label for “The Life of Pablo” streams during February and March 2016.
Tidal has denied the bombshell report.
“This is a smear campaign from a publication that once referred to our employee as an ‘Israeli Intelligence officer’ and our owner as a ‘crack dealer,’ ” Tidal said in a statement.
“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.”
The report follows a trend of bad news for the Spotify competitor — and for Jay-Z.
In December 2017, Dagens Naeringsliv reported that Tidal was losing tens of millions of dollars annually, and would possibly go out of business by mid-2018.
Since Jay-Z purchased the Oslo-based company in 2015, it has reportedly lost about $60 million.
He sold a 33% stake in the company to Sprint for $200 million in 2016.
The report of Tidal’s woes comes on the heels of Jay-Z skipping a court appearance Tuesday in Manhattan Federal Court, where he was expected to give testimony to Securities and Exchange Commission investigators.
The SEC is looking into the $204 million purchase of Jay-Z’s fashion brand Rocawear, as well as joint ventures between the rap mogul and Iconix Brand Group, which is being investigated for possible violations of federal securities laws.