The service, which offered to pay artists higher royalties than any other streaming platforms like Spotify, is now being sued for allegedly not paying royalties and violating copyright.
- Mar 1, 2016
AceShowbiz - Upon the launch of Tidal nearly a year ago, Jay-Z bragged about the service offering artists higher royalties than any other streaming platforms. Now, the company is being sued for allegedly not paying independent artists proper royalties and violating copyright.
John Emanuele from the duo American Dollar and the group's indie label Yesh Music Publishing filed a $5 million lawsuit against Tidal and Hov's Shawn Carter Enterprises over the weekend. They claimed that the streaming service had licensed at least 118 of American Dollar's songs without the duo's permission and had not paid the American Dollar any royalties for streams on those songs.
"Different owner, same game," read the lawsuit filed in New York federal court. "Ironically, when Defendant [Shawn, as in Jay Z] CARTER purchased the TIDAL Music Service in 2015, it claimed it would be the first streaming service to pay the artists."
Plaintiffs alleged that Tidal's library's made "by dumping all of the music from independent artists into" the service without filing the proper notices. "Independent artists are predominantly impacted by defendants' systematic infringement," they explained. They further accused Tidal of "deliberately miscalculating the per-stream royalty rates."
Tidal has responded to the claims made by Emanuele and Yesh Music Publishing. In a statement issued on Monday, February 29, the company said they were "up to date on all royalties" owed to Yesh Music, LLC.
"As Yesh Music, LLC admits in their claim, TIDAL has the rights to the Master Recordings through its distributor Tunecore and have paid Tunecore in full for such exploitations. Their dispute appears to be over the mechanical licenses, which we are also up to date on payments via Harry Fox Agency our administrator of mechanical royalties," they continued and added that "they have now removed all music associated with Yesh Music, LLC and John Emanuele from the service."
They also noted that Shawn Carter Enterprises had nothing to do with Tidal and plaintiffs shouldn't have named it as defendant in their suit. "This claim serves as nothing other than a perfect example of why America needs Tort reform," they concluded.
