In 2016, Kanye West was hit with a lawsuit over The Life of Pabloalbum release. The complaint stemmed from the rapper’s tweet in which claimed the project would be exclusively available on Tidal—a streaming service he co-owned with other artists like Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and Rihanna.
“My album [The Life of Pablo] will never never, never be on Apple,” he wrote. “And it will never be for sale.... You can only get it on Tidal.”
About six months after Tidal’s subscriptions surged from 1 million to 3 million, the “living, breathing, changing” album eventually appeared on Spotify, Google Play, and Apple Music. Yeezy fan Justin Baker-Rhett wasn’t too thrilled about this.
Shortly after The Life of Pablo landed on other streaming services, Baker-Rhett filed a lawsuit against Ye and Tidal’s parent company Aspiro for fraudulent inducement.
Kanye’s legal team pulled a “well actually” defense, claiming The Life of Pablo had undergone numerous updates and remixes; therefore, the initial version was technically a Tidal exclusive.
The court didn’t buy the defense team’s argument, and in June of this year, Rhett-Baker’s lawsuit was given the green light.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, one of the biggest questions now is whether or not the lawsuit should receive a class certification. A class action lawsuit—one that is filed by a group of consumers with the same complaint—would likely result in a bigger judgment; however, according to legal documents obtained by THR, there are some questions that need to be answered before a class certification is granted:
U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Woods seems to be Team Kanye. Per his opinion obtained by THR:
Keep it locked as more details about the case become available.
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