Tidal Accused Of Streaming Scandal

There may have been some artificial sweetner in the Lemonade.

So claims an article in Norwegian publication Dagens Nœringslive released yesterday, outlining what would be a massive manipulation scandal at music streaming service Tidal.

In what could be called a “play-for-pay” scam, the report alleges that some one inside Tidal doctored streaming data for Beyonce’s “Lemonade” and Kanye West’s “The Life Of Pablo.” resulting in disproportionate payouts to the artists’ respective labels.

The artists boasted astronomical early numbers at the time of their releases, originally exclusive to Tidal (Lemonade streaming remains exclusive), with Kanye’s the “The Life Of Pablo” asserting an unbelievable 250 Million streams in the first ten days. While not impossible, the performances were noticeably high for being exclusives to a service with a much smaller market share than competitors Spotify or Apple.

While the report can’t make claims as to who may have perpetrated the scheme or who knew, suspicion naturally rests with rapper/mogul Jay-Z, a part owner in the company, wife of Beyonce, and longtime friend of Kanye.

What Happened?

A hard drive the newspaper claims it obtained from an unnamed source within Tidal was given to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology for independent study, presumably for their expertise in analyzing complex data but perhaps equally as a preemptive measure against accusations of bias from Tidal - the paper has previously presented the service and it’s team in a negative light.

The analysis (which has since been taken offline) suggests that some 320 million streams and 1.7 million users may have been affected. Red flags in the data included that users were streaming in abnormally high volumes and at curiously precise intervals (to the millisecond) throughout the day and even all night. In some cases “users” were simultaneously streaming both records.

Who gets hurt?

Like Spotify, Tidal pools subscription dollars and then pays out rights holders based on percentage of total plays. By pumping their numbers the artists can claim a larger share of the pool which is taken directly for other artists on represented on the service. Royalty reports indicate that “Lemonade” and “Life of Pablo” each earned north of $2.5m for their labels.

Whether or not the report turns out to be true it’s another PR blow for Tidal which has struggled from the get go to keep pace against stronger rivals like YouTube, Spotify, and Apple.