Jay Z’s streaming service, Tidal, is being sued by musician John Emanuele over claims he’s been underpaid and his music was illegally streamed.
Emanuele and Yesh Music, LLC are suing Jay Z’s Carter Enterprises and two other companies that back the streaming service for $5 million for copyright infringement and underpayment of royalties.
The class-action lawsuit states Jay Z’s claims that Tidal was created for artists, producers and songwriters to get fairly paid for their work are all untrue.
“Ironically, when Defendant Carter purchased the Tidal Music Service in 2015, it claimed it would be the first streaming service to pay the artists. Different owner, same game,” said the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims Tidal has also been less than forthcoming about royalties earned. The service “failed to serve monthly reports which detail the usage of every song and calculation of royalties,” the lawsuit continued.
Emanuele, part of The American Dollar band, said 116 of their songs were streamed illegally and they received $0.00 in royalties.
This lawsuit is just the latest in Tidal's mounting issues. They were sued by Cash Money Records for $50 million in July and they lost their CEO a month prior to that. However, it's been rumored Samsung is in talks to buy the company.
Update: Tidal told us in a statement:
"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 entire catalogue in question 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.