Kanye West’s Being Sued by Furious Fans for Promising ‘TLOP’ Would Be Exclusive to Tidal
Fans are furious with Kanye West, after the rapper promised his new album, The Life of Pablo, would be available exclusively on Tidal (which happens to be owned by his buddy Jay Z)–and then promptly released the music everywhere and anywhere.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016
Remember that tweet? Yeah, well soon after that promise, the album was dropped on Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play Music, and Pandora.
Reports say that more than 1.5 million people subscribed to the paid music service—which had reportedly been struggling before the announcement—in the first 10 days of TLOP‘s release, after Kanye said the album would only ever be available through the site. The company even reported that TLOP was streamed more than 250 million times on its service in its first 10 days of release. Now, some fans want to be compensated, such as Justin Baker-Rhett, who is part of a class-action lawsuit involving other Tidal subscribers who believe they were duped. Baker-Rhett says he feels he was tricked into “paying for Tidal’s rescue.” He’s clearly experiencing a little buyer’s remorse over forking out $9.99 for the service, and is suing not just Kanye, but also Tidal for damages.
The lawsuit’s being led by consumer-tech privacy law firm Edelson PC, which has reportedly recovered more than $1 billion in settlements since 2007. The firm is no stranger to this kind of case and has filed actions against huge brands such as Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It’s not clear how this will end, but it’s definitely not great news for Tidal, Jay Z, and especially Kanye.
