In March 2015,
Jay-Z along with other A-list musicians re-launched Tidal, a lossless audio and high-definition
music streaming service. To date, Tidal offers
two subscriptions tiers comprised of the “TIDAL premium” tier, where listeners
pay $9.99/month for unlimited streaming of songs in high
quality without ads, and
“TIDAL Hifi,” which provides users the ability to stream 25 million tracks
in high-definition audio
for $19.99/month.
Shortly after Tidal was announced, Jay-Z participated
in a Q and A where he addressed Tidal’s pay
structure and how up and coming artists can benefit from the service. Specifically,
Jay-Z used this Q and A as a platform to reveal that Tidal
will pay the highest royalty percentage to
artists out of all the currently available streaming services. And
in particular, Tidal executive Vania
Schlogel discussed the lack of a free streaming tier, attributing its absence
to free
music streaming and consumption having contributed to “depressing the record music industry” along
with “the downfall of the recorded music industry.” But, in reality – does Tidal provide musicians with more royalties?
Throughout the
marketing campaign surrounding Tidal,
it was consistently emphasized that it
would be significantly better for musicians than other streaming services such
as Pandora. But the problem
facing musicians isn’t streaming services like Spotify or Pandora not
sharing enough of its subscription and advertising revenue. In fact, Spotify published a blog post at the end
of 2014 stating that it has
paid more than $2 billion dollars in royalties to record labels, publishers,
and collection societies since its launch in 2008.
Instead, the
challenge facing artists is that recording labels treat each “stream” as a
sale, which means artists only receive 10% to 20% of the label’s royalties. And with musician's compensation governed,
and restricted, by each individual musician's contract, the only artists who profit off the increased
subscription price are those with shares in the business.
But since not
even Jay-Z can amend each artist's contract with their record labels, it seems
unclear if Tidal will be making as
big a splash as predicted by the music moguls who helped rebuild the streaming
service earlier this year.
- Erica Vincent
Managing Editor
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