Tidal Responds to Lawsuit Against Jay Z Over Royalty Payments

Photo by Colin Kerrigan

Update (2/29, 4:38 p.m.): Tidal has responded, emailing the following statement to The Fader: 

Tidal is up to date on all royalties for the rights to the music stated in Yesh Music, LLC and John Emanuele’s claim and they are misinformed as to who, if anyone, owes royalty payments to them. As Yesh Music, LLC admits in their claim, Tidal has the rights to the Master Recordings through its distributor Tunecore and have paid Tunecore in full for such exploitations. Their dispute appears to be over the mechanical licenses, which we are also up to date on payments via Harry Fox Agency our administrator of mechanical royalties.

The main compositions in question were release by The American Dollar and their entire catalogue streamed fewer than 13,000 times on Tidal and its predecessor over the past year. We have now removed all music associated with Yesh Music, LLC and John Emanuele from the service. This is the first we have heard of this dispute and Yesh Music, LLC should be engaging Harry Fox Agency if they believe they are owed the royalties claimed. They especially should not be naming S Carter Enterprises, LLC, which has nothing to do with Tidal. This claim serves as nothing other than a perfect example of why America needs tort reform.

Jay Z faces a class-action lawsuit claiming the Tidal music streaming service underpaid royalties to artists and infringed copyright, as Complex reports.

A complaint filed February 27 in New York federal court named the hip-hop mogul's S. Carter Enterprises and two affiliates as defendants.

Jay Z's businesses allegedly created Tidal's library "by dumping all of the music from independent artists into" the service without filing the proper notices, claimed John Emanuele of New York duo the American Dollar, along with Yesh Music, Emanuele's music publishing firm with bandmate Richard Cupolo. They added, "Independent artists are predominantly impacted by defendants' systematic infringement."

The complaint further accused Jay Z's organizations of "deliberately miscalculating the per-stream royalty rates."

The suit seeks between $30,000 and $150,000 for each of 118 alleged infringements.

Pitchfork has reached out to Tidal for comment.

Jay Z tweeted last year that "Tidal pays 75% royalty rate to ALL artists, writers, and producers."

Emanuele and Cupolo previously filed copyright lawsuits against televangelist Joel Osteen and the now-defunct streaming service Grooveshark.

Samsung has resumed talks to acquire Tidal, the New York Post recently reported, citing "several" unnamed sources.

via Marc Hogan