Following a report published by Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv claiming that TIDAL faked their numbers, the streaming platform has issued a statement denying the accusations.
DN began an investigation in January 2017, following speculations that TIDAL had manipulated their data for Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo and Beyoncé’s Lemonade. After acquiring a hard drive of TIDAL data, the publication tracked down a number of subscribers to ask whether the statistics matched, and a report was published.
NTNU’s Center for Cyber and Information Security (CCIS) also examined the data and produced a report, which can no longer be accessed, but claimed that various methods were implemented by the platform to up its play count for the two albums.
In a statement to Pitchfork, TIDAL said, “This is a smear campaign from a publication that once referred to our employee as an ‘Israeli Intelligence officer’ and our owner as a ‘crack dealer.'”
“We expect nothing less from them than this ridiculous story, lies and falsehoods. The information was stolen and manipulated and we will fight these claims vigorously.”
According to Variety, the quotes “reference descriptions of Jay-Z and Tidal COO/Roc Nation executive Lior Tibon in a previous Dagens Næringsliv article, which were technically accurate at one time but are decades out of date.”
In December 2017, DN also claimed that TIDAL was running out of money and that user growth had stalled. In a statement to The Verge, a spokesperson for TIDAL said, “We have experienced negative stories about TIDAL since its inception and we have done nothing but grow the business each year.”
