Hey, remember your ex, TIDAL? I think you guys met several months ago when you were desperate to listen to The Life Of Pablo, and TIDAL was the only one who could get you your fix. What a wild ride that was; you must have listened to “Highlights” like 60 times. Oh, but didn’t you guys suddenly break up after a month or two, after TIDAL started telling you that you had to pay them, what, like $9.99 per month if you wanted to keep listening to The Life Of Pablo? Damn, that was a harsh wake-up call. Anyway, sorry to bring up bitter memories. I only did so because, well, TIDAL was on the news!
Yeah, get this: So ever since Prince passed away, the only place to stream his entire catalog has been TIDAL. One would think this meant that they were given exclusive rights to do so. Only now, turns out TIDAL may have never had permission to stream Prince’s entire catalog!
Prince’s estate is suing, contending that TIDAL was only given 90-day exclusive rights to only stream 2015’s Hit N Run: Phase 1, and that by giving people access to his entire catalog, are exploiting copyrighted works. Crazy!
For what it’s worth, Roc Nation (who I guess TIDAL is sort of “with” now) contends there have been various oral and written agreements between the parties, including exclusive streaming rights of Prince’s catalog for TIDAL. Either way, seems like you really dodged a bullet here. TIDAL reportedly lost $28 million last year, and stands to lose millions more in damages if this lawsuit doesn’t go their way. Thank god you broke out of that cycle of co-dependency when you did. You know, that cycle of you needing TIDAL to listen to The Life Of Pablo and TIDAL needing you to be at all relevant. Glad those days are over.
