Jay Z sues former Tidal owners

Just over one year since Jay Z purchased Tidal and its parent company Aspiro for $57 million, the rap mogul is allegedly suing the former owners for around US$15 million.

According to Norwegian publication Dagens Næringsliv(translated: Today’s Business)Jay Z has accused many of the former shareholders in Aspiro of overstating the number of subscribers it had when he purchased the business.

Jay Z’s company Project Panther Bidco Ltd were told Aspiro’s companies Tidal and WiMP had 530,000 global subscribers in January 2015.

The Norwegian media title states Tidal representatives have been in correspondence with Schibsted and Verdane, two of Aspiro’s former major shareholders.

In a statement given to Swedishpublication BreakIt, Schibsted Communications Manager Anders Rikter said: “We want to point out that it was a publicly traded company that was acquired, [meaning it involved] transparency of financial reporting. Otherwise we have no comments.”

As reported in TMN this week, Tidal marked its one year anniversary with Jay Z in the fold by revealing it now has three million subscribers across 46 countries including Australia.However, Tidal lags well behind Apple Music, which got 10 million users within its first six months in January, and another million in February. Both are well behind Spotify though, which this week announced it had 30 million subscribers.

According totheNew York Post Tidal is also looking to challenge services like Netflix and Amazonwith plans to enter the movie streaming business. The NY Post reports Tidal is looking at hosting original content following discussions with The Weinstein Co. and Irv Gotti, as well as acquired films. Tidal has apparently sought approval from Apple’s App Store to add movie streaming to their app and is looking to feature films in its offering as early as June.