Kanye West and Jay Z sued over 'The Life of Pablo' release

San Francisco man claims Kanye's guarantee that the album would only be available on Tidal was a 'deceptive marketing ploy.'
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Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Kanye West may not get away with this tweet so easily.

A man in San Francisco filed a lawsuit on Monday against West and Jay Z for "fraudulently inducing consumers to subscribe to Tidal" while promoting his wildly successful seventh studio album, The Life of Pablo

Lawyers for Justin Baker-Rhett pointed to specifically to a tweet Kanye sent on Feb. 15 in which he said the album will "never never never be on Apple." 


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A month and a half later, the album was released to all other streaming services

Baker-Rhett's lawyers are calling this an "unequivocal declaration of Tidal’s exclusive access to his album" and ultimately a "deceptive marketing ploy." They seek class-action status to represent as many as million new Tidal subscribers, who they say "are worth as much as $84 million to Tidal."

The Life of Pablo was streamed 250 million times in its first 10 days alone and helped deliver a serious boost to Tidal's subscription numbers.

"In reality, neither Mr. West nor SCE ever intended The Life of Pablo to run exclusively on the Tidal platform. To the contrary, they—knowing that Tidal was in trouble but not wanting to invest their own money to save the company—chose to fraudulently induce millions of American consumers into paying for Tidal’s rescue," the complaint says.

Baker-Rhett seeks damages, disgorgement of profits and restitution. His lawyers also request that Tidal delete the credit card and other private information users submitted while signing up. 

Lawyers for Tidal, Kanye West and Jay Z did not respond to Mashable's request for comment. 

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