Music consumers love streaming services. The data surrounding subscriptions and revenue tells us so. Largely self-reporting systems, however, have made it more complicated to quantify that success. Can we trust companies to embrace transparency when their own interests rely so much on the numbers they are reporting?
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.
Internet & Social Media Law Blog