TIDAL Firmly Denies Claims They Inflated Beyoncé & Kanye's Streaming Numbers

TIDAL, Jay-Z's music streaming site, has vehemently denied recent claims that they'd presented inflated streaming numbers of Beyonce's Lemonade and Kanye West's The Life of Pablo.

Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv released an investigative article claiming TIDAL had reported hundreds of millions more plays of the two albums to record labels than were actually streamed. Dagens Naeringsliv claimed to have obtained a TIDAL hard drive and analyzed the data with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)'s Center for Cyber and Information Security (CCIS).

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The report claims TIDAL had logged over 320 million false plays of Lemonade and The Life of Pablo, the former of which is still only available on TIDAL and the latter which was exclusive on the site for 6 weeks. The report claims TIDAL had been logging users listening to TLOP 96 times a day, for example, as well as all through the middle of the night and at suspiciously consistent six minute intervals. It also claims users to be listening to more than one song at a time.

TIDAL sent the forthcoming statement to Pitchforkdenying completely the claims made in the report:

"This is a smear campaign from a publication that once referred to our employee as an "Israeli Intelligence officer" and our owner as a "crack dealer."

We expect nothing less from them than this ridiculous story, lies and falsehoods. The information was stolen and manipulated and we will fight these claims vigorously."

The "Israeli Intelligence officer" comment was reportedly made by DN about Tidal COO/ Roc Nation executive Lior Tibon, and the "crack dealer" comment made about Jay-Z. DN has a history of publishing stories attacking TIDAL and claiming they've falsified numbers over the years. A TIDAL spokesperson told The Verge: "We have experienced negative stories about TIDAL since its inception and we have done nothing but grow the business each year."