One of those angry fans is now suing West and Tidal. The fan named Justin Baker-Rhett filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Monday, April 18, claiming that the rapper tricked him and millions of other fans into signing up for the Jay-Z-owned streaming service which costs $9.99 a month.
In his suit, Rhett points out that after releasing "Pablo" on Tidal, West announced on Twitter that he would never sell or stream the project on other retailers or services. Thanks to that, Tidal's subscriptions reportedly doubled from one million users to 2.5 million. Another report said the album was streamed over 250 million times in its first 10 days of release.
"Mr. West's promise of exclusivity also had a grave impact on consumer privacy," the lawsuit states, noting that users' credit card information, music preferences and other personal information have been collected. The suit goes on claiming that the value of all the personal information from subscribers could amount to $84 million for Tidal.
"We fully support the right of artists to express themselves freely and creatively, however creative freedom is not a license to mislead the public," Rhett's attorney Jay Edelson wrote in a statement. "We believe that we will be able to prove to a jury that Mr. West and Tidal tricked millions of people into subscribing to their services and that they will ultimately be held accountable for what they did."
Representatives for West and Tidal haven't responded to the lawsuit yet.
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