Tidal Is So Bungled It Could Lose Beyoncé’s Discography

Carl Williott | May 29, 2015 9:53 am
Nicki & Beyonce's "Feeling Myself" Vid
Nicki Minaj and Beyonce finally dropped their "Feeling Myself" video. Watch.

Jay Z‘s music streaming service Tidal has been one of those “great in theory, flawed in practice” scenarios thus far. “High fidelity streams! Artists calling the shots and reaping the rewards! Subscriber exclusives!” The reality has been much more of a mixed bag, with exclusive Tidal premieres pissing off artists’ fans and/or being leaked onto the free web almost instantly, plus the fact that the vast majority of Tidal content is available for free with competitors like Spotify. And now Tidal is perilously close to losing its streaming agreement with Sony.

Beyoncé is a Sony artist, and Bloomberg reports that Tidal still hasn’t agreed to Sony’s new asking price, whereas Universal and Warner have already agreed to new licensing terms since Jay Z’s acquisition of the company. If Sony were to pull out, this would leave Tidal without Bey’s music (not to mention the rest of the label’s content), and it’s something the major has already done with Soundcloud. This would be bad enough for Tidal, but it’s even worse when you consider King B’s co-ownership and involvement was one of the service’s selling points.

This also highlights a(nother) major flaw in the Tidal system. Save for a guy like Jack White, the Tidal owners don’t own their music’s streaming rights; their labels do.

I’m guessing Jay will pay up, to save himself the PR disaster of losing his wife’s discography. The thing is, most Beyoncé fans probably want this deal to fall through, which says a lot about the uphill battle facing Tidal right now.

[via Pigeons & Planes]

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