Following the release of Kanye West's 'The Life of Pablo', Jay Z's Tidal, a music-streaming service, has been hit with a class-action lawsuit over the exclusivity of the former's latest album. The lawsuit accuses the two of collaborating and exercising deceptive marketing practices.
According to CBS News, Kanye West's newest album with ever-changing release plan, "The Life of Pablo," was sued for duping its customers. The lawsuit was filed by the law firm, Edelson PC, which claimed that West confirmed that the album would only be released and be available through Jay Z's Tidal. The statement convinced 2 million consumers to subscribe to the music service. However, that proved to be false as West soon started selling his album through his website; and on April, it showed up in Apple Music, Spotify and even Google Play Music.
Rolling Stone reported that the lawsuit accuses Tidal and West of using the lure of a one-month free trial as well as West's 'exclusive' album to boost the membership for the streaming service provided. It speculated that Tidal is on the brink of collapse without getting enough memberships. Consumers were then uniformly tricked to giving their private data and credit card information by a singular mistruth as said in the lawsuit. The $5 million lawsuit demands Tidal to delete all 'private information' of the plaintiffs who joined in the lawsuit.
Yahoo published that Edelson PC founder and CEO Jay Edelson said "Kanye has the power to send one tweet out into the world and get 2 million people to act on it. This suit is about holding him accountable when he abuses that power." However, a representative for Tidal, Kanye West, and Jay Z didn't respond for comments regarding the lawsuit.
Meanwhile, West has tweeted on February 15, 2016 that his album will "never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale.... You can only get it on Tidal." The album's exclusivity to the said music provider tripled the streaming numbers, according to the lawsuit.
