Man Sues Kanye West & Tidal Over False Exclusivity of ‘The Life of Pablo’

A Californian man is suing Kanye West and Jay Z’s music streaming service Tidal, accusing them of falsely marketing the exclusivity of Yeezy’s latest album ‘The Life of Pablo’.

In a proposed class action lawsuit filed in the San Francisco federal court on Monday, Justin Baker-Rhett said he signed up for the $US9.99 ($13AUD) a month service after West announced over Twitter his album was only to be released on Tidal.

The album has since been released on on Apple Music, Spotify, and Kanye West’s website.

Baker-Rhett has claimed the exclusivity of the album was a strategy to boost subscribers to the struggling music site, with the tweet, “My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale … You can only get it on Tidal.”  cited in the complaint.

The lawsuit claims Tidal’s subscriber base had increased by two million users and it’s value had risen from $US60 million to $US84 million.

The lawsuit added, “Mr. West’s promise of exclusivity also had a grave impact on consumer privacy,” by forcing them to turn over credit card and other personal information.

“You can’t trick people into paying money and giving up personal information just because the company is struggling,” Baker-Rhett’s lawyer Jay Edelson said.

In a statement by Edelson he said he supported the right of artists to express themselves freely and creatively, but “creative freedom is not a license to mislead the public”.

“We believe that we will be able to prove to a jury that Mr. West and Tidal tricked millions of people into subscribing to their services and that they will ultimately be held accountable for what they did.”

The Life of Pablo was streamed more than 250 million times within 10 days of release, the lawsuit said.