Over two years ago now, there were reports that Jay-Z’s Tidal streaming platform falsified some of their streaming numbers; Specifically, for Kanye West and Beyonce. In January of 2019, though, a Tidal representative denied that the platform was under investigation. Now it looks like either that wasn’t true or the situation has changed since then: Norwegian financial publication Dagens Næringsliv (DN) reports that Tidal is in fact under investigation for data fraud in Norway.
DN notes that the formal investigation, which was first launched last June, has been approved by the Norwegian Supreme Court Appeals Committee. The initial allegations first came to light through a DN investigation, in which the publication alleged they obtained access to Tidal hard drives and discovered that listening stats for Beyonce’s Lemonade and Kanye’s The Life Of Pablo had been inflated, which could have an affect on royalties paid to artists.
A Tidal representative said in 2019, “Tidal is not a suspect in the investigation. We are communicating with Økokrim. From the very beginning, [Dagens Næringsliv] has quoted documents that they have not shared with us in spite of repeated requests. DN has repeatedly made claims based on information we believe may be falsified. We are aware that at least one person we suspected of theft has been questioned. We cannot comment further at this time and refer to our previous statement, which still stands.”