Rihanna  

This constitutes several federal crimes. Tidal would have to be audited by a computer specialist and accountant to gain the true figures. Only Tidal's owners have access to the real numbers for their own music and that of the artists who have signed up with the service. Everyone else is being lied to by the company, except its entertainer owners such as Rihanna, among others, whose streams are being grossly inflated to illegally place higher on the Billboard charts.

This has resulted in Rihanna deceitfully equaling Michael Jackson's record for the most number one singles in music history and it is criminally being done through fraud, robbing the late music legend of a musical honor that he legitimately earned. It's disgusting and disgraceful. She can't even sing or dance properly for that matter.

Jay Z Previously Busted And Slammed For Sales Fraud

Jay Z and former Tidal CEO Peter Tonstad

This is not the first time Jay Z has been busted engaging in a sales scam. Years ago, the Billboard chart company, caught Jay Z red-handed bribing retailers to run the same copy of his CDs through the register multiple times to enable him to debut at the top of the charts. For example, when a customer bought one copy of a Jay Z CD, retailers were being paid to run the same copy through the register 3-7 times, which ridiculously inflated his sales. Billboard slammed him for it, as it corrupted chart results, giving him number ones he did not earn, while depriving other artists of their rightful place in music history.

I know the history of the music industry very well and what truly goes on. There were times in music history (up until Soundscan) where music retailers would phone in how many records, CDs and CD singles they sold. The numbers they reported would be completely inaccurate and inflated due to bribery, where some artists are concerned, to help them secure undeserved number ones on the music charts (see: Madonna).

Other scams include manipulating RIAA sales. Some people get excited when they hear their favorite artist's album has gone platinum. However, some record executive, such as Tommy Mottola, formerly of Sony, a man with ties to the Genovese mafia, routinely inflated sales of artists such as Mariah Carey, whom he later married after an adulterous affair for career promotion by the fame hungry star. During the 1990s, you could go in any record store in America and find an excessive amount of unsold Mariah Carey CDs on the shelves, more than any other artist. That's because all the RIAA required for a gold (500,000 copies) or platinum (1,000,000 copies) certifcation is that the label ship the corresponding amount to retailers. You don't actually have to sell that amount to get the certification.

While Mariah Carey was a very gifted vocalist (her voice is very damaged now) Mottola's scam resulted in her having greater sales than Whitney Houston, Barbara Streisand and Patti Page, when she did not sell more albums or singles than the latter. She sold more than Madonna, but not Houston, Streisand or Page. Then, Mottola ripped off Carey, pocketing huge amounts of her actual sales and related products. Mottola, who was in his 40s, saw in an 18-year-old Carey, a great voice, a desperation for fame and a sucker he could exploit (but then she embarrassed him to the world).  

Madonna, Jay Z And Rihanna Using Tidal To Inflate Their Own Sales

Jay Z and wife Beyonce

Jay Z, Madonna and Rihanna are using the computer staff at Tidal to inflate record sales. It is apart of the reason some of the original staff fled (Tidal Loses Three More Executives). The first notable incident occurred via Rihanna's "Anti" album, where Jay Z lied stating the album had been streamed 400,000 times on Tidal, the same night Samsung bought and gave away 1,000,000 copies of the flopped album for free to her fans. Those numbers don't add up nor did Nielsen or Billboard corroborate or authenticate said fake numbers from Tidal.

A new controversy has erupted, as Tidal has falsely claimed Kanye West's album entitled "The Life Of Pablo" which they botched the release of, has been streamed 100,000,000 times in two weeks, which is an outright lie (it's not even West's most talked about or popular album). Adele and Justin Bieber weren't even streamed that much in two weeks and they are currently the top music sellers of 2015 and 2016 (so far).

Someone then pointed out to Tidal that Drake's album "If You're Reading This It's Too Late" which had way more buzz than Kanye's release, was streamed 17,000,000 times in two weeks on Spotify. Therefore, how did "The Life Of Pablo" which has no real buzz, stream 100,000,000 times in two weeks. They falsified the sales. When called out on the maneuver they were shoveling, trying to inflate sales as usual, Tidal backpedaled and stated "The Life Of Pablo" was streamed "millions of times" not "100,000,000 times." 

To make matters worse, Tidal did not report the streams to Billboard, as it is on the low end of the spectrum. This means for the first time in his 13-year rapping career, West has an album that did not chart on Billboard, which is a very negative development for a major label artist. "The Life Of Pablo" is classified as a flop. Tidal are a bunch of unprofessional, crazy jokers who aren't real business people. They are messing up artists careers. Billboard stated, "In respect to TIDAL and Kanye, for whatever reason they're not reporting that title [The Life of Pablo] to us...I don't know the reason behind it, I just know that they're not" - Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard VP, Charts & Data Development.

Jay Z and Beyonce

"The Life Of Pablo" was deliberately leaked, so as to make it easier to be placed on Tidal, without the record company becoming enraged, believing it an actual leak. However, Def Jam has lost over $20,000,000 due to Jay Z's poor business acumen and dirty tricks in trying to keep a dead website alive (Tidal) via another leaked release ("The Life Of Pablo").

The irony for West is it took him 3-years to record the album, which is a significant period of time for making a studio recording. West also spent a significant sum of money to make the album, at many studios, using a number of guest stars. This all came from record company funds he has to recoup before he sees any money in profit. And as the album is being streamed on Tidal and at poor royalty rates, West will not recoup the costs of making the indulgent "The Life Of Pablo." His next album will have to sell double the usual amount to get him out of the red at the record label, whom he now owes a small fortune.

Con Artists And Thieves

Jay Z and Madonna, among others at Tidal, are terrible con artists and thieves. They have nothing legitimate to contribute to the marketplace, always looking to get an illegal payday off someone else's hard work. They are always looking for someone to rob and rip off. There is something wrong in their brains. The mechanism that regulates people's conscience, sense of decency and ability to accept their fair share, not seeking to take everyone else's, is woefully absent in them. It is a mental defect found in psychopaths and greedy criminals with compulsions regarding money.

Jay Z and Madonna have been repeatedly sued for years by many people for ripping off, robbing and shortchanging others. They are never satisfied and have absolutely no conscience or decency. If they were given 99 percent of the money in the world, they would still be furiously and feverishly searching the other 1 percent's pockets for money to take. They are not business people. They are criminals running scams and perpetrating acts of criminal fraud that is actively defrauding others.

STORY SOURCE

Jay Z and Tidal Are Reportedly Facing a Lawsuit Over Failing To Pay Artist Royalties (UPDATE)

8 hours ago - UPDATE: Tidal just issued a statement to Complex about the lawsuit and said that they are up to date on all royalties owed to Yesh Music, LLC. TIDAL is up to date on all royalties for the rights to the music stated in Yesh Music, LLC and John Emanuele’s claim and they are misinformed as to who, if anyone, owes royalty payments to them. 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.

The entire catalogue in question streamed fewer than 13,000 times on TIDAL and its predecessor over the past year. We have now removed all music associated with Yesh Music, LLC and John Emanuele from the service. This is the first we have heard of this dispute and Yesh Music, LLC should be engaging Harry Fox Agency if they believe they are owed the royalties claimed. They especially should not be naming S Carter Enterprises, LLC, which has nothing to do with Tidal. This claim serves as nothing other than a perfect example of why America needs Tort reform.

When Jay Z launched Tidal last year, he did so on the idea that the streaming service would be the first of its kind to take care of artists with higher royalty payouts. After the official launch event, Jay even tweeted that Tidal was going to pay every artist, writer, and producer featured on the service a 75 percent royalty rate, which was higher than any other streaming service in the industry, at least according to Hov. Now, it appears that Hov and Tidal are in some serious hot water over their royalty system, as they're reportedly facing a $5 million class-action lawsuit from Yesh Music, LLC and John Emanuele​ from the band, the American Dollar.

The lawsuit, which was uploaded online to the site Scribd here, claims that Tidal streamed 116 of the band's copyrighted songs without paying back any royalty payments in the process. The firm Garbarini Fitzgerald P.C. reportedly filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court Southern District of New York over the weekend, according to the uploaded documents. As of now, neither Jay, Tidal, or Tidal's parent company, Aspiro, which is also named in the suit, have responded to the case.

We spoke with the lawyer in the case, Richard Garbarini, on the phone, and he confirmed that the suit was filed over the weekend. Over the phone, Garbarini said that the band received no royalties for their work until this past Nov., and that the group asked months ago to have their music removed from Tidal. As of today, the band's music is currently still available to stream on Tidal. "I find it fairly amazing an organization that claims it was going to pay the artists, systematically does not pay the artists," Garbarini said.

Tidal reportedly used faulty numbers to make payments to artists and may have undercut the money they owed to artists by as much as 35 percent, according to the filed documents. The band claims that they were expecting monthly reports on royalty payments and usage of every song on the service, but nothing was ever sent, according to the lawsuit...

http://www.complex.com

TIDAL Refuses to Reveal Stats for Kanye’s “The Life Of Pablo,” 100 Million Streams Likely Wrong

Posted 5 days ago - 2016-02-23 - Minutes ago I clicked on a story from Pigeons and Planes reporting that anonymous sources within TIDAL have revealed that Kanye's new album, The Life Of Pablo, has so far been streamed 100 million times exclusively on TIDAL in the two weeks since its (quasi)release; we can assume that means at least 50 million times in its first week. 100 million? 100 MILLI?!?!?!?...

For comparison, Drake's IYRTITL album held a previous streaming record by racking up approximately 17 million streams of If You're Reading This It's Too Late in its first week, and those official numbers came via Spotify, a service with approximately 25 million paid subscribers and an additional 40 million free users for 65 million total users. So that would mean that Kanye accumulated roughtly three times more streams than Drake in his first week on a streaming service 1/26th the size of Spotify. (TIDAL is currently reporting 2.5 million subscribers, about one million of those new subscribers driven there by Kanye's album.) If those kind of stats seem too good to be true, it's because they likely aren't true.

Unfortunately, Pigeons & Planes seems to have simply made a mistake in their reporting. According to the original TMZ story they cited, the TIDAL source told TMZ that the album has been streamed "millions" of times, not "100 million times." "Millions" could indeed mean 100 million, or it could mean two million, which would be a mere 98 million off.

"Sources connected to Tidal tell TMZ ... "The Life of Pablo" and its debut at MSG has already been streamed millions of times in less than two weeks, which is a record for the service." - TMZ

Regardless of who reported what number from where, the confusion around TLOP gets at a deeper story. As fate would have it, I didn't see P&P's story when it first went up because at the time I was on the phone with Billboard's VP of Charts & Data Development, Silvio Pietroluongo. Among the many topics we discussed (full interview coming later), Pietroluongo confirmed that while TIDAL has shared streaming and sales numbers for other artists and releases, they've so far refused to divulge any stats around The Life Of Pablo.

"In respect to TIDAL and Kanye, for whatever reason they're not reporting that title [The Life of Pablo] to us...I don't know the reason behind it, I just know that they're not." - Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard VP, Charts & Data Development...

http://djbooth.net

Tidal nears one year of mediocrity and failure

In Music by Joel Freimark / February 25, 2016 - Just under a year ago, Tidal hosted one of the more awkward launch events ever known to man, as a handful of multi-millionaire musicians stood uncomfortably and lost on stage — all seeming to hope one another knew what was going on. In many ways, the event can be seen as the ideal precursor to the brilliant “how do I walk on stage” performance from presidential candidate Ben Carson just a few weeks ago, and the Tidal launch told us all we needed to know about the company. As they approach their first anniversary, things have only gotten worse, and someone should have the decency to put the clueless, unimaginative company out of its misery...

Then, of course, there was Tidal’s promise that they’d be using the platform to help unknown artists achieve stardom. Used by pretty much every music-related startup, this line is as old as “these photos are just so I can show big time producers what you look like,” and as of yet, not a single artist has been vaulted to any real status by the platform. This in itself isn’t entirely Tidal’s fault, as you need a large, active listener-base to achieve this, and they have neither.

Oh wait, that Kanye guy got a TON of hype when Tidal completely botched his album release — and nobody knew about him or Rihanna before they joined Tidal, right? The only thing Tidal achieved with their arrogant, unprofessional style of “exclusive” releases was incurring a massive amount of hate from the very people they’re trying to convince to pay them every month for a service that is done better elsewhere.

But arrogance runs deep in the lifeblood of Tidal. Even before their launch event, they attempted to garner sympathy and subscribers in an absurd manner. Their pre-launch video was nothing short of unintentional comedic genius and led to countless, well deserved parodies. In short, Tidal was attempting to put forth the concept that they were “the little guy.”

Note to Jay Z, Madonna, Jack White, Kanye West and the long list of multi-platinum millionaires in the video: You can’t make people feel bad for NOT giving you $10 a month when you yourselves haven’t had to consider the value of $10 a month in well over 10 years...

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com