Lily Allen says Jay Z's new music streaming site will turn people to piracy
Music Business Worldwide reports that the musician posted a series of tweets in which she criticised Jay Z's Tidal music streaming site.
Tidal places emphasis on exclusive content, and recently featured exclusive videos from Beyoncé, Daft Punk, and The White Stripes, as well as a new song by Rihanna.
But Allen is critical of Tidal's approach to music. "Hosting exclusive consent from the biggest stars on the planet on a paying platform: while I agree with its intention, I fear it will send people back to pirate/torrent sites," she said.
Allen expanded on her fears, saying "I love Jay Z so much, but TIDAL is soon [sic] expensive compared to other perfectly good streaming services. He's taken the biggest artists & made them exclusive to TIDAL (am i right in thinking this ?), people are going to swarm back to pirate sites in droves sending traffic to torrent sites."
Allen is worried that music fans will be so eager to listen to exclusive content from musicians like Rihanna and Beyoncé that they will turn to torrent sites like the Pirate Bay instead of paying to join Tidal.
Competition between rival streaming sites like Spotify, Tidal, and Apple's streaming service (which is expected to be launched this year) will mean that it's going to be more difficult for fans to be members of every site, so they're bound to miss out on exclusive content. Allen summed up that fear in a pair of tweets: "If you can't afford Tidal and you really wanna see Kanye's new video, are you gonna wait a week till it goes everywhere or go get it now?"
Elsewhere in her Twitter rant, Allen suggested that musicians go on strike until record labels start paying them more money. "WE COULD JUST STRIKE TILL THE LABELS GIVE US OUR FAIR SHARE OF STREAMING REVENUE,NOT TAKE ADVANCES, NOT DELIVER MUSIC, FOR THE FUTURE ARTIST… A REAL REVOLUTION YEAH," she said.