According to new reports, Tidal has now enlisted the help of an “independent, third-party cyber-security firm” to investigate the probability of a data breach. Last week, new allegations popped up, accusing the streaming platform of generating “false plays” to boost numbers on Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Kanye West’s The Life Of Pablo in order to increase royalty payouts.
Now Tidal, who has already denied all allegations, released a new statement Friday (May 18th), stating that they are investigating the findings from the Norwegian paper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) to see if there was a data breach.
CEO of Tidal Richard Sanders states: “We reject and deny the claims that have been made by Dagens Næringsliv. Although we do not typically comment on stories we believe to be false, we feel it is important to make sure that our artists, employees, and subscribers know that we are not taking the security and integrity of our data lightly, and we will not back down from our commitment to them.
When we learned of a potential data breach we immediately, and aggressively, began pursuing multiple avenues available to uncover what occurred. This included reporting it to proper authorities, pursuing legal action, and proactively taking steps to further strengthen our stringent security measures that are already in place[...]We are proud of the hard work, devotion to our artist driven mission, and tremendous accomplishments of our over one hundred employees in Norway and fifty more in the United States.”
Earlier in the week, DN also accused Tidal of being late with royalty payments and lowering royalty percentage without renegotiating the terms. Several Scandinavian artist organizations have taken legal action to investigate these accusations made against Tidal and see if their own artists have been affected.