Jay-Z’s Tidal hasn’t been much of a threat to Apple Music so far, but according to Tidal, that’s not stopping Cupertino from suing them. Over charity, no less!
According to a new report, Apple Music threatened to sue Tidal for $20 million over rapper Drake’s appearance at a charity concert to benefit kids affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Page Six reports that Apple Music execs were not happy when Drake was confirmed to perform at Lil Wayne’s Lil WeezyAna festival in New Orleans last night.
Why? The event was being streamed live via Tidal, a competitor to Apple Music, but Drake has an exclusive deal with Cupertino that might be worth as much as $19 million.
Apple, therefore, reached out to Tidal, and told them that if his music was streamed live, they’d sue for $20 million.
A source told Page Six: “Legal letters have been sent to Tidal warning that Drake cannot appear on the Tidal stream of the festival, either solo or part of a group, and if the warning was ignored, the liabilities could be up to $20 million…. This event is for charity, Drake is doing two songs. Why does Apple think it can dictate to artists where and when they can perform?”
Tidal confirmed via Twitter that Drake’s two songs would be blocked from streaming on the Apple Music competitor:
1/2 Apple is interfering with artistry and will not allow this artist to stream. Sorry for Big Brother’s inconvenience.
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) August 29, 2015
2/2 We'll be back after the performance.
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) August 29, 2015
Yet this may not be the truth. BuzzFeed pours some cold water over the notion that Apple threatened Tidal:
“The decision to not have Drake participate in the Tidal steam has nothing to do with Apple or Drake’s deal,” Drake’s manager Future the Prince told BuzzFeed News. “Point blank, 100%. I made a business decision. Apple doesn’t have the power to stop us from being part of a live stream. The only people that have the power to do that are Cash Money and Universal, and they’re our partners.”
In other words, Tidal is spinning this into an attack on Apple Music, when it had nothing to do with them. Typical.
Source: PageSix
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
7 responses to “Did Apple threaten Tidal with $20 million lawsuit over Drake charity appearance?”
“…Tidal is spinning this into an attack on Apple Music, when it had nothing to do with them.”
So why is this not the headline? Typical.
Because it made you read all the way to the bottom like I did.
Because you’re reading CoM, the Tidal of Apple rumour sites
Not surprising, considering Apple sucks.
Are you stupid or jus playing dumb? If you bothered to read the article you would have read the part where Drake’s manager confirmed Apple had nothing to do with it.
He’s added a “gold verified” tag to his account, I’d say stupid.
Not surprising someone on Cult of Mac would defend apple because Drakes manger (who surprisingly wouldn’t want to step on his financiers toes) says it wasn’t Apple.