Jay Z Readies $15 Million Lawsuit Against Former TIDAL Owners
This week TIDAL announced that it had 3 million paid subscribers alongside impressive stats for its slate of exclusives. But even as Jay Z was popping the champagne corks his lawyers were prepping a massive lawsuit against TIDAL's former owners.
Jay Z 's legal team has put the former owners of Aspiro and its music streamer WiMP, which Jay Z bought and turned TIDAL, on notice that they believe that they "significantly" exaggerated both user stats and the company's financial condition prior to purchase. Apsiro had claimed 503,000 paying prior to the sale.
Media company Schibsted and venture capitalists Verdane both received letters outlining the charges. The local business press estimates potential damages at north of $15 million USD.
Schibsted communications manager Anders Rikter told Today's Enterprise that his company had received the demand letter from Jay Z , but that it "says nothing about sums in the letter we have received about. All figures are pure speculation."
READ: TIDAL'S OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON THE LAWSUIT
MORE: Tidal Announces 3 Million Paid Subscribers + Kanye West, Rihanna Exclusives Stats
If you are not able to read “we have 500.000 subscribers, whereof 390.000 receive their subscription as a free “add on” when buying other products” as anything but “we have 500.000 subscribers”… I am not surprised he conciders a lawsuit.
But the company he boutht was a listed, public company, and he did do a due diligence before the deal was signed, as well.
So… who is to blame?
Those who are not able to read “whereof” clauses in letters, or the ones doing due diligence that does not highlight said “whereof”?
Add to that that Tidal started taking over Wimp users, with a statement that sounded like “Hey Wimp User. You have been using Wimp, listening to lossless music, with an computer app, and android/iphone apps. You can continue using Wimp, but you should come to Tidal, because we will close down all wimp services after a while. We do not have a computer app for Tidal, so you will have to use a web browser to listen to music on your computer. And if you want to listen to lossless music, on Tidal that does not have a computer app, you will have to use the Chrome web browser, as no other web browsers will support lossless listening. Feel free to use Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera, but then you wil listen to lossy music as well. Welcome to Tidal, we will make you move from Wimp in the end”.
(Ok, that was not the actual wording of the letter, but as a user, that was what I read.)
NOW they have a Tidal app. And lossless listening through that, without Chrome. But I for one was happy with Wimp, and was seriously concidering giving up my subscription when Tidal took over, based on their aproach to music quality and apps.
How many users did NOT renew their subscriptions just based on Tidals communications? How many new subcribers did move to Spotify?
I would guess “a lot”.