Internet & Social Media Law Blog
A Chicago law firm has challenged Jay-Z and Kanye West, filing a class action complaint for violations of the California Business & Professions Code, fraudulent inducement and unjust enrichment in the Northern District of California. The complaint alleges that Tidal, a music streaming service owned by Shawn “Jay Z” Carter and Kanye West, was in financial straits earlier this year but that help arrived when Kanye West used his 
valuable star power on Twitter to encourage his followers to subscribe to Tidal by tweeting that his highly anticipated new album The Life of Pablo would only be available on Tidal. Mr. West also tweeted that the “album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal.” The complaint further alleges that subsequently “[n]ew subscriptions to the streaming platform skyrocketed, tripling its consumer base from 1 million to 3 million subscribers in just over a month.” All would have been well except that Mr. West made The Life of Pablo available through Apple Music, Spotify and his own online marketplace a month and a half after its initial release.