More than a week after Tidal was hit with fraud allegations, the company’s CEO has announced an investigation of a possible data breach.
The streaming platform—part-owned by Jay Z—was accused of inflating streaming numbers for Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Kanye West’s The Life Of Pablo projects, effectively boosting their royalty payouts. Norwegian news outlet Dagens Næringsliv published the allegations earlier this month, after they allegedly obtained an internal hard drive with Tidal’s play data. The publication claims the service generated more than 300 million fake streams for Bey’s and Kanye’s latest projects, both of which were released as Tidal exclusives.
Tidal has denied the allegations, insisting it was part of a “smear campaign”; however, its CEO Richard Sanders said the accusations have raised concerns about a possible security breach.
“We reject and deny the claims that have been made by Dagens Næringsliv. Although we do not typically comment on stories we believe to be false, we feel it is important to make sure that our artists, employees, and subscribers know that we are not taking the security and integrity of our data lightly, and we will not back down from our commitment to them,” Sanders wrote in a statement to Rolling Stone. “When we learned of a potential data breach we immediately, and aggressively, began pursuing multiple avenues available to uncover what occurred. This included reporting it to proper authorities, pursuing legal action, and proactively taking steps to further strengthen our stringent security measures that are already in place.”
Sanders went on to say Tidal has hired an “independent, third party cyber-security firm” to lead the review. He concluded: “We look forward to sharing with them, and all of our partners, the results of the review once completed.”
