Sam Oliver
Jay Z-backed music service Tidal — which carried a live stream of Lil Wayne's Hurricane Katrina benefit show this weekend — cut the transmission during Drake's performance and accused Apple of "interfering with artistry" by not allowing the set to be streamed, a charge which has been refuted.
In the midst of the show, Tidal's stream went black with a message that read "Apple is interfering with artistry and will not allow this artist to stream. Sorry for big brother's inconvenience." A follow-up report in the NYP said that Apple had threatened a $20 million lawsuit if Tidal streamed Apple Music endorser Drake's set.
Drake's manager Future denied that claim, telling BuzzFeed News that the move "has nothing to do with Apple or Drake's deal."
"Point blank, 100%. I made a business decision," Future continued. "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."
Despite Future's protestations — Â and a similar denial from sources at Apple — Â Tidal insists that Apple was behind the decision to pull the stream.
"We have all the email receipts and written correspondence that took place with said, blocked performance," a Tidal spokesperson told BuzzFeed. "That being said we choose to keep it classy."
Apple has not publicly commented.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
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Wesley Hilliard
104 Comments
Classy? That's classy? Reminds me of spats between Viacom and Direct TV, or CableOne...
Passive aggressive, but whatever.. no big whoop :)
OK, let's see those threatening emails.
Lol. Tidal sucks. So they blame Apple. funny thing is Apple didn't have anything to do with it. Just go away little bum. Go away. And even if Apple did, it's called contracts and business. And the artists willingly take part in that. After all, let's not forget that Todal isn't about the people enjoying the music. It's about the business of producers making money.
And the whole "we have evidence, but we won't show you because we are too good" means they have no evidence and whoever said that likely doesn't understand the libelous trouble they are in should Apple decide to pursue this.
Accusation + two denials + no proof = "keeping it classy."
Can I get a what what?