Kanye West and TIDAL Exclusively Sued

interesting. i doubt it will go anywhere, but i think the guy has a point.

 

I think it'll come down to the use of the word exclusive. I'm sure kanye camp will say it was an exclusive premier or a timed exclusive. As long as there is nothing contrary in the original release then I think kanye and tidal won't lose anything.

 

Same. Kind of like how people can sue (and beat) beer companies that market themselves as a craft brewery when they're actually much bigger. Ultimately, this guy should piss off - all he did was maybe pay $10 to join Tidal for maybe one month.

 

yeah...i mean, if they had to agree to a yearly subscription or something, i could see being more pissed off about it. but, i really don't like kanye, so i hope he gets stung a little out of all this. :)

 

I smell an out of court settlement. Tidal has enough bad press where I doubt they'll want to go to court over this which would surely only bring more bad press. With their marketing reputation and the truly iffy way TLOP was marketed as "exclusive," it'd probably make more sense for both parties to just settle outside court. I mean this San Fran guy can't be expecting that much money where Tidal won't want to just settle and get him out of their hair.

 

haha this rules.

 

No surprise to see Jay Edelson behind the suit. He's a class action shark.

 

Guy will need to prove that he suffered some sort of injury as a result of Kanye's actions, which seems flimsy to me. Even if he wins (dubious), his recovery would be limited to the damages he suffered as a result of the harm - which I don't really see here.

 

It's a class action case, so they'll be looking for a certified, court-approved settlement on behalf of everyone who signed up for Tidal on the basis of getting access to TLOP. I'm curious as to how they'll propose to differentiate those people from general sign-ups, though.

The simplest injury to allege is the subscription fee to Tidal, which is presumably significant (and quantifiable) enough on a class-wide basis to pursue. The injury with regard to Tidal's amassing of subscriber information is a bit more nebulous, but that's Edelson's bread-and-butter, so if there's anyone who can make a case for sufficient standing/injury from it, it's probably them.

 

Given that the album was released exclusively on Tidal and then tweaked before being released everywhere else, doesn't Kanye's claim technically still hold? I mean there was a version of TLOP that was exclusive, just not the final version.

 

Except Kanye explicitly stated his album would never be available through Apple and only on Tidal, as quoted in the article.

 

My law knowledge is very very limited, so bear with me, but basically if Tidal chooses to settle, that would mean they'd have to contact everyone who signed up after the release of TLOP and offer a refund or something? If so...yikes.

 

A true adult would just ask for a refund for their Tidal subscription.

 

I hate 2016.

 

It depends on how the settlement is structured. Typically, a notice would be issued in some manner calculated to inform as many class members as possible of their rights and their ability to participate in the settlement. There's no magic bullet for every case, so it depends on what the parties convince the court is reasonable. A few possible methods include having Tidal message/e-mail all their users, physically mail letters to subscribers' addresses, or publish advertisements about the settlement. The notice would probably tell class members to go to a dedicated website (something like tidalclassactionsettlement.com) where they can submit their claims. How much Tidal would be on the hook for depends on how much money gets allocated to the settlement fund, how many members submit claims, and what the court orders should happen to the remaining funds if they're not claimed by class members.

 

good

 

Dude probably didn't even pay for the tidal subscription. The free trial lasted until it went to Apple Music because they kept upping it for me to keep me subscribed.

 

Sounds like he has a personal vendetta against Kanye.

 

I've gotten so many of those over the years for random products.

I think I got a check for $4 once for some vacuum cleaner or something.

 

obligatory

 

Brilliant

 

Pretty sure this won't bother him in the slightest.

 

Haha, the only one I was ever interested in participating in was a settlement against Ticketmaster over the ridiculous fees they tacked onto purchases, but I think I was too lazy to investigate the claiming process and let it fall by the wayside.

 

Couple of my friends just got their $2.50 checks from the Red Bull class action