Jay-Z latest business venture, a ‘high fidelity streaming service’ called Tidal has in a most recent report said to be paying more than double that of Spotify.
After much media scrutiny over how much Spotify pays in royalties towards it’s artist’s, with a classic example being Pharell Williams’ ‘Happy’ making a mere $2700, It seems like the perfect conditions for a more rewarding newcomer.
Enter Jay-Z with a new service “owned by the artists”. However since It’s launch last month, Tidal has been causing waves (wink) in the media with much speculation over it’s integrity.
After Jay-Z’ group Project Panther Bidco acquired the platform from Aspiro for £36m back in March, to their rather embarrassing press conference which had a backlash from the media, to the service falling short of Apples top 750 apps list.
With vested interest from superstars like Beyonce, Daft Punk, Alicia Keyes, Rihanna and Deadmau5, Tidal feels more like some elitist financial clique, with only the richest faces in the music industry getting the lions share.
Well today, an unknown independent music label posted on Digital Music News their royalty payouts for using the service. Tidal’s average payout is $1.2 cents compared to Spotify’s $0.72.
The numbers show that Tidal keeps a 30% share (which is industry standard), however Jay-Z originally stated the service would pay 75% in royalties to an artist, meaning they should only keep 25%. But this earnings report is dated back to March, and Tidal hadn’t completed It’s relaunch until the end of March. And so only time will tell, as to the legitamacy of Tidal’s heavily criticised business model.