US Fan Files Class Action Against Tidal and Kanye West For Falsely Claiming Album As Exclusive Release
Thursday 21 April 2016 @ 11.50 a.m. | Legal Research
A Californian man has launched a class action suit against music streaming service Tidal and rap superstar Kanye West and is seeking damages in excess of US $5 million for breaching consumer laws and fraudulently inducing consumers to subscribe to the service and provide Tidal with their personal information.
Justin-Baker Rhett has filed a complaint in the San Francisco Division of the United States District Court, saying he was misled into subscribing to Tidal after West claimed his new album “The Life of Pablo” would be exclusively available on the service.
Background to Claims
Tidal, which was acquired and relaunched in 2015 by hip hop artist and entrepreneur Jay Z, called itself an “artist-owned” service, and was backed by a number of prominent industry figures, some of whom created exclusive content for the service. However, the class action complaint suggests that despite its celebrity backing and much publicised launch, the music service found it difficult to compete against much larger and more established streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify.
The Kanye West Announcement
In 2016, Mr West announced that he would be releasing his new album on Tidal. A tweet included in the complaint from Tidal’s account on February 14 says:
“We’re bringing @KanyeWest’s #TLOP to fans around the globe. It’s streaming exclusively on TIDAL.com”
A second tweet from Kanye West’s Twitter account on February 15 says:
“My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal.”
The complaint states that following the announcements, and subsequent album release, the number of subscriptions climbed from 1 million to 3 million, and that the album was streamed over 250 million times. One month and a half later, Mr West released the album for sale on his own website, as well as for streaming through Tidal competitors Spotify and Apple Music.
The class action alleges that both Tidal and West acted deceptively because:
“at all times, Defendants SCE and Mr. West knew that The Life of Pablo would not be available exclusively through the Tidal streaming platform. [at 40]”
Mr Baker-Rhett says following the Twitter announcement, he immediately signed up to Tidal, and:
“Had Plaintiff Baker-Rhett known that Mr. West’s album would be available to stream through other platforms besides Tidal, particularly those that offer the album for free or one in which he already pays for (e.g., his paid Spotify account), he would not have downloaded the Tidal app, provided his personal information, or paid for a subscription to Tidal’s streaming service (for which he was charged $9.99 in March 2016).”
The complaint sets out four allegations as causes of action – a violation of California’s False Advertising Law, a violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law, fraudulent inducement and in the alternative, unjust enrichment.
Jay Edelson, the lawyer for Mr Baker-Rhett, told Triple J that Kanye “knew it wasn't true, he knew his fans were going to rely on it and we think it actually boosted the valuation of his company to the tune of over $60 million” and that he would be asking for US $60 million.
Mr West and Tidal have not publicly responded to the claims.
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