At this point, it is no secret that Kanye West's Twitter gets him into a ton of trouble in the court of public opinion. His recent MAGA hat-wearing tirades and false promises of album releases are most notable, but West is also facing legitimate legal trouble for a 2016 tweet related to his album The Life of Pablo.
The since-deleted tweet read, "My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale.... You can only get it on Tidal."
As most of you know, that proclamation didn't hold true and TLOP ended up making its way onto Spotify and Apple Music in due time as well. So, why is Ye facing a potential class action lawsuit? That's because Justin Baker-Rhett is being allowed to move forward in court with his original 2016 lawsuit claiming that he was fraudulently forced to pay Tidal's $9.99 monthly fee to hear the album and may be joined by other Kanye stans with the same claim.
Attorneys for West and Tidal's parent company Aspiro are having none of it and claim that a class action lawsuit should not be allowed. The latest court brief refers to Rhett-Baker as "a Kanye West super-fan who closely followed Mr. West's social media feeds and routinely listened to podcasts regarding Mr. West," and claims that other media outlets separate from West's Twitter stated the album would only be exclusive to the service for one week.
"The only way to establish which, if any, of the class members were (1) aware of the Tweet; and (2) relied on its contents when subscribing to Tidal, is to conduct individualized inquiries of each class member’s subjective experiences and motivations," the brief reads. "That would outweigh any benefits of a class action, and is precisely why consumer fraud actions such as this are inappropriate for class certification."
West's representative and Tidal also claim that many of the people who subscribed to Tidal for the album could have canceled their membership before the trial period was over and not been charged the $9.99 fee, or could have simply continued using Tidal for its various other features going forward.
