The release of Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo reportedly doubled TIDAL’s subscriptions, in part, because it was promoted as an exclusive release. One of those subscribers is taking the rapper and streaming service to court, the Associated Press reports.
Justin Baker-Rhett is one of the two million subscribers who signed up for the streaming service for West‘s album. He is upset that he paid $9.99 per month and filed a lawsuit today (April 18) because he feels tricked after the album was released to Spotify and Apple Music weeks after West ranted on Twitter that the album would never be available anywhere else but TIDAL. Besides the money, he is concerned that the company now has the subscribers’ personal information, including credit card information.
“Mr. West’s promise of exclusivity also had a grave impact on consumer privacy,” the plaintiff writes in the case.
Baker-Rhett’s lawyer, Jay Edelson, makes it clear that he and his client do not want to attack the artists’ free speech, but are concerned about the manipulation that occurred by The Life of Pablo‘s rollout.
“We fully support the right of artists to express themselves freely and creatively,” he says in a statement. “However creative freedom is not a license to mislead the public. We believe that we will be able to prove to a jury that Mr. West and TIDAL tricked millions of people into subscribing to their services and that they will ultimately be held accountable for what they did.”
TIDAL is also facing a $5 million lawsuit from independent artist John Emanuele, who claims that the service does not properly compensate artists.
For additional TIDAL coverage, watch the following DX Daily:
why don’t you just put a link to TMZ on your homepage seeing as that’s where you get all your “hip hop” news from?
they actually put a link to the associated press u cornball
Kayne doesn’t care about black people.
Haaaa, good ish!!!
Ahah and the backlash begins! He deserves it literaly pulled a bait and switch just to up subscribers on a streaming service he is part owner of and attains a profit from by blatantly lying to his fans who already spend a fortune between his album releases merch and his ridiculously expensive yeezy clothes guys a total douche i hope he gets the pants sued off him for just taking money out of fans pockets
This is what happens. Jay and Kanye are crooks and they sold their soul for money a loooooong time ago.
it serves them right, thieving away at people’s pockets. I wish more people would come up suing for the same claims. greedy ba$tards. Hope he wins, fvck Kanye West n tidal.
GTFOH this is the stupidest law suit every. These idiots will sue over practically anything LMAO
I was wondering how long it would take for this to happen. It’s blatant false advertising and completely against any ethical values.
It’s not alse advertising. The promotion doesn’t ay how long album would e on Tidal exclusively. This is case he will not win. Ethical values has nothing to do with this promotion. Nothing case.
The problem is that kanye NEVER clarified that the album will eventually be available anywhere else, he just flatout said it will only be on tidal exclusively. Whether or not it he intentionally mislead his followers, he still utterly failed to properly communicate what the rollout of the album will entail at the time of release and what the rollout will entail moving into the near future. To equivocate the way kanye and his team obviously did, is utterly irresponsible and i wouldn’t blame his fans if they don’t trust him anymore or wanna buy anything from kanye again. He played himself and his fans who signed up for tidal with this shit.
Kanye stated verbatim this album will never be on Apple Music or anywhere else but tidal..now I don’t know if tidal agreed to those statements however if this kid wants to sue try Kanye only just not sure if tidal is still held accountable since Kanye holds equity with tidal
give that man his 9.99 back
Anyone who subscribed to Tidal for the kanye album without using the free trial first is a complete idiot
Tidal didn’t claim that it would always be exclusive, kanye did.
When will these leaches die? There is always that one law student/fuccboi who thinks they need to go to court coz they feel tricked. FOH.
fuck tidal, fuck kanye, fuck the kardashians, fuck ……
Man, would you stop with your bullsh*t post? No one believes this trash.
This is a clever lawsuit since Kanye is a co-owner of Tidal. Since Kanye is a co-owner of Tidal, his promise of an exclusive album release “could” be seen as a promise from Tidal as a whole. Unfortunately this lawsuit could potentially open the door for a class action suit from many subscribers who purchased Kanye’s album on Tidal. Here is a classic example of Kanye’s very public words coming back to bite him.
I Mean really it the original version was only on tidal its been changed now and thats the version everybody else has but if people are stupid enough to pay that each month for that one album they deserve it nobody forced them to if they subscribe kanye would’ve looked like n idiot and put it out everywhere plus the hard copy sooner instead even though sale suck now he made history off streaming a half done and was #1 off streams through a company he owns a piece of but he ain’t a genius
I wanna sue Kanye for lying about TLOP being the greatest album of all time… might just be his worst album.
That’s what you get for subscribing to TIDAL.