It's been a big week for Jay Z's streaming service Tidal, as they revealed that they reached the 3-million subscriber mark and then celebrated the one-year anniversary of their relaunch. Over the past year, the company has seen plenty of ups and downs, but have been very positive of late with exclusive album releases from Rihanna and Kanye West. With things trending up and the subscriber base at a solid standing, Tidal is now taking legal action against parties involved in the original sale of the company.
As Business Insider first reported, Jay Z and Tidal are going after the former owners of the company for reporting faulty subscriber numbers in the first place. "We are excited that one year after TIDAL launched, we have surpassed 3 million subscribers globally. The growth in our subscriber numbers has been even more phenomenal than we’ve previously shared," a Tidal spokesperson told Complex in a statement. "It became clear after taking control of TIDAL and conducting our own audit that the total number of subscribers was actually well below the 540,000 reported to us by the prior owners. As a result, we have now served legal notice to parties involved in the sale."
It's currently unclear what the actual subscriber number was when Jay Z took over the company last year. The former majority shareholders of Tidal, which includes the media company Schibsted, and the parent company Aspiro, have reportedly been notified of the legal action. In a statement to the news service BreakIt, Schibsted communications manager, Andres Riker, said that they were "unsympathetic" to Jay Z. "We want to point out that it was a publicly traded company that was acquired, [which means] transparency of financial reporting [was required]. Otherwise we have no comments," he said.
Tidal couldn't share further comment on the legal proceedings at this time and we'll continue to update this story as more details are made available.
