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In a proposed class action lawsuit filed in San Francisco
federal court, Justin Baker-Rhett said he signed up for the
$9.99 a month Tidal service after West tweeted on Feb. 15 that
"Pablo" would never be sold anywhere else.
But the California resident called the exclusivity promise a
ploy to add millions of subscribers to a struggling Tidal, which
Jay Z controls, and that West released the album 1-1/2 months
later on Apple Music and Spotify, and on his own website.
Baker-Rhett said the scheme tripled Tidal's subscriber base to 3
million, boosted its value by $60 million to $84 million, and
threatened fans' privacy by forcing them to turn over credit
card and other personal information.
"You can't trick people into paying money and giving up personal
information just because the company is struggling,"
Baker-Rhett's lawyer Jay Edelson said in a phone interview.
Tidal and West did not immediately respond to email requests for
comment.
"Pablo" was streamed more than 250 million times within 10 days
of release, the lawsuit said.
West's tweet, included in the complaint, said: "My album will
never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale...
You can only get it on Tidal."
Jay Z took control of Tidal in a roughly $56 million acquisition
in March 2015.
According to media reports, one of his businesses threatened
last month to sue Tidal's former owners for inflating subscriber
numbers, suggesting the price tag may have been too high.
Tidal calls itself an "artist-owned" service backed by West, Jay
Z's wife Beyonce, Deadmau5, Alicia Keys, Madonna, Chris Martin,
Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Jack White and many other artists.
Monday's lawsuit seeks class action status for people who
subscribed to Tidal from Feb. 15 to April 1 and streamed "Pablo"
tracks within 24 hours.
It seeks actual and punitive damages, and the deleting of
subscribers' personal data.
The case is Baker-Rhett v S. Carter Enterprises LLC et al, U.S.
District Court, Northern District of California, No. 16-02013.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Grant
McCool)
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