TIDAL accused of faking Kanye and Beyoncé streaming numbers

Criminal Complaints And Industry Investigations Target Tidal

Streaming platform Tidal, whose most public owner and champion is rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z, is facing heavy criticism and possible legal action from several Scandinavian artist organizations and other entities after a Norwegian business newspaper alleged last week that the company had faked hundreds of millions of plays on Beyoncé's Lemonade and Kanye West's The Life of Pablo. That paper, Dagens Naeringsliv (DN), published its original findings on May 9. DN says it was surreptitiously given hard drive that contained internal Tidal play data, and worked with researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology who analyzed the hard drive logs.


A lawyer for Tidal named Jordan W. Siev told the Norwegian paper that he believes the data was stolen, and that "DN exhibits complete lack of understanding of the data." Moreover, Tidal denies that any play data has been manipulated, or that any royalty structures have changed.


On Monday, a team of DN journalists published a trio of follow-up stories. In one of those reports, DN purports to show that in the past year, Tidal has lowered payments to labels from 62.5 percent to 55 percent, without renegotiating terms. (The company has, since launching, billed itself as the streaming platform that pays the most to creators; DN says that a 55 percent payout puts Tidal on equal footing with Spotify and Apple Music's terms.) Daniel Nordgård, the chair of GramArt, the Norwegian musicians' association, called the situation "a complete breach of trust."


Tidal is co-owned by a consortium of high-powered recording artists, including the two artists whose streaming plays were allegedly manipulated — Jay-Z's wife, Beyoncé, and Kanye West — as well as Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Daft Punk, Jack White, Arcade Fire and others; in early 2017, Sprint bought a 33 percent stake in the company for $200 million. 

In a statement last week, Tidal attempted to discredit the Norwegian media outlet, saying: "This is a smear campaign from a publication that once referred to our employee as an 'Israeli intelligence officer' and our owner as a 'crack dealer.' We expect nothing less from them than this ridiculous story, lies and falsehoods. The information was stolen and manipulated and we will fight these claims vigorously."


Nevertheless, several Scandinavian organizations have decided to take action based on DN's reporting. TONO, the Norwegian collection society for composers, lyricists and music publishers, has filed a report with Okokrim, Norway's prosecuting and police authority that is charged with fighting economic and environmental crime. Koda, Tono's sister organization in Denmark, announced on Monday that it is demanding an independent audit of Tidal's numbers. GramArt, the professional musicians' association in Norway, also demanded an audit of Tidal's data and says that if payouts have been withheld, it will be seeking money from Tidal on behalf of its members.


In addition, the Norwegian arm of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has announced that it will be reviewing the Norwegian albums and singles charts, which rely on Nielsen SoundScan data and are published weekly in the newspaper VG.

Tidal did not respond immediately to NPR's requests for comment on Monday. Both Sony and Universal, which released or distributed the Beyoncé and Kanye West albums, declined to comment to NPR last week about the original DN report.


May 14, 2018 
A previous version of this article stated that Koda, the Danish composers organization, filed a report with Okokrim, a Danish prosecuting and police authority. It is TONO, the Norwegian composers, lyricists and music publishers society, that has filed a report with Okokrim, which is the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime.



www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2018/05/14/610945573/criminal-complaints-and-industry-investigations-target-tidal

Now TIDAL is accused of failing to pay record labels on time

It’s been a week since TIDAL was accused of manipulated streaming numbers for its two biggest ever album releases – Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Kanye West’s The Life Of Pablo – to the tune of hundreds of millions of plays.  Norwegian financial newspaper Dagens Næringsliv printed the story after a year-long investigation, backed up by forensic analysis of a hard drive which it said contained ‘billions of rows of [internal TIDAL data]: times and song titles, user IDs and country codes’.

TIDAL later dismissed the story, accusing DN of a “smear campaign” against its company – while commenting that the information which sparked the report was “stolen and manipulated” and that it “will fight these claims vigorously”. 

Since then, however, the industry outcry over the matter has grown louder:

Norwegian collection society Tono, which represents around 30,000 songwriters, has filed an official police complaint against TIDAL, encouraging the authorities to look into the claims of streaming manipulation. Danish collection society Koda has announced it will be undertaking an independent audit of TIDAL data, following the accusation that millions of dollars were paid to Sony and Universal as a result of the Kanye West and Beyoncé album streams;

It’s been reported that TIDAL reduced its recorded music royalty payout in April last year from a 62.5% share of its revenue to 55%. Crucially, says DN, it did so without consulting rights-holders or PROs. The 55% revenue payout share would be in line with new deals agreed by the major music companies and Merlin with Spotify around this time. DN cites TIDAL royalty documents sent to the major labels (pictured main) as evidence, one of which – from July 2017 – you can see in detail through here.

And today, fresh revelations from Dagens Næringsliv suggest that TIDAL is significantly behind with its royalty payments to music industry rights-holders.  In a new report, DN suggests that multiple sources have informed it that TIDAL is “behind with payments directly to the three major international record companies”.  Two prominent Norway-based music businesses, independent label Propellor Records and its distributor, Sony-owned Phonofile, go on record to further comment on the matter

“It is correct that there are delays in payments from Tidal,” says Sveinung Rindal, CEO of Phonofile / head of The Orchard in Norway.

“We have not been paid since October,” says Frithjof Boye Hungnes, CEO of Propeller Recordings.  Hungnes is also a board member of Fono – which represents Norway’s independent record companies. 

He adds: “People are talking about withdrawing [their music from TIDAL]; I think there is a pretty upset mood.”

Propellor receives streaming payouts via Phonofile / The Orchard, and it is claimed that these payments should occur monthly.

Other parties claiming that TIDAL has not paid them for months include successful local artists Bjørn Gunnar Sando – drummer in and manager of Hellbillies – in addition to “Ravi” Johansen.

The last public accounts for TIDAL’s parent company, Project Panther Bidco Ltd, show that the firm lost $42.9m in 2016 (see below).


Last year, however, TIDAL sold a 33% stake in its business to US telco Sprint for approximately $200m.



[The above article is based on MBW’s translation of DN’s latest story.]Music Business Worldwide


www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/now-tidal-is-accused-of-failing-to-pay-record-labels-on-time/