A Norwegian newspaper is claiming that Tidal, which is primarily owned by Beyoncé’s husband, Jay-Z, of inflating streaming numbers for Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Kanye West's Life of Pablo albums.
The publication, Dagens Næringsliv, investigated numbers released by Tidal, a subscription-based music streaming service, and claim that its subscriber count has been inflated. It says its information has been verified by British Firm, Midia, which claim that Tidal's total number of subscribers is close to 1-million globally.
Tidal held the exclusive streaming rights to Life of Pablo for its first six weeks of release and claimed that it had been streamed 250-million times in its first ten days of release in February. It also claimed that it had 3-million subscribers. This means that every subscriber would of had to have played the album eight times a day.
Tidal remains the exclusive streamer for Lemonade and said it was streamed 306-million times in its first 15 days of release.
“Beyoncé’s and Kanye West’s listener numbers on Tidal have been manipulated to the tune of several hundred million false plays… which has generated massive royalty payouts at the expense of other artists," wrote the paper.
Tidal, however, have refuted the claims calling them a "smear campaign." It said the figures have been manipulated and it would fight the claims.
Shuuu. It's on.
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