Tidal Counters Accusations With Its Own Investigation
“We reject and deny the claims that have been made by Dagens Næringsliv.”
Last week, Norwegian business publication Dagens Næringsliv accused Tidal of intentionally falsifying streaming numbers and its subscriber growth numbers for exclusive releases including Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo and Beyonce’s Lemonade. Other claims included how the streaming service missed months of payments to record labels. The company data acquired was allegedly found on a hard drive that the paper acquired.
Now, Tidal is disputing these accusations and saying that it is investigating how the confidential company data could have been obtained by the newspaper. “We reject and deny the claims that have been made by Dagens Næringsliv,” Tidal CEO Richard Snaders said in a statement to Variety. “When we learned of a potential data breach we immediately, and aggressively, began pursuing multiple avenues available to uncover what occurred.”
“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,” he says in a statement to RollingStone.
Tidal says that it has informed authorities and has begun pursuing legal action. Tidal is countering with an investigation looking into how that data had been potentially breached. In addition, the JAY Z-owned streaming service has also hired a third-party cybersecurity firm to “conduct a review of what happened” and help “protect the security and integrity of our data.”
Read the full statement by Richard Snaders below.
“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.
“Additionally, we have engaged an independent, third party cyber-security firm to conduct a review of what happened and help us further protect the security and integrity of our data. 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. We look forward to sharing with them, and all of our partners, the results of the review once completed.”
