Kanye West has been telling fibs and one fan is looking to take him to court over it. As News Corp reports, Justin Baker-Rhett has filed a class action lawsuit in San Francisco federal court claiming the rapper defrauded fans into signing up for Tidal.
Tidal is the troubled streaming service famously (or perhaps infamously) owned by Jay-Z and West had previously claimed that his latest album, The Life of Pablo, would be exclusive to the service and not available to stream or purchase anywhere else.
West tweeted as much back in February and Baker-Rhett was one of many fans who took the rapper for his word and signed up for Tidal, agreeing to pay the US$9.99 (AUD$13) per month fee for the otherwise maligned streaming platform.
When The Life of Pablo subsequently appeared on Apple Music and Spotify a couple months later, Baker-Rhett was incensed. He’s now accusing West and Tidal of tricking consumers into signing up for Tidal, adding millions of customers to the struggling service.
According to the suit, the apparent conspiracy tripled Tidal’s subscriber base to three million, increased its value from US$24 million to US$84 million, and violated the privacy of fans by forcing them to give Tidal their credit card data.
My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016
The Life of Pablo reportedly clocked 250 million streams within 10 days of release. “You can’t trick people into paying money and giving up personal information just because the company is struggling,” a lawyer for Baker-Rhett told News Corp.
The suit is seeking class action status for anyone who subscribed to Tidal between 15th February and 1st April and streamed The Life of Pablo within 24 hours of subscription. The suit is seeking actual and punitive damages and the scrubbing of user data.
