Tidal Releases Choke Hold on Prince’s ‘HITNRUN’

By: Antoinette Alston, contributing intern

Tidal is well known for not being the most popular choice for many consumers, but as for Jay Z’s company, it still drops the most exclusive album and song releases from big name artists. Alongside Tidal controlling all rights to Lil Wayne’s FWA, they secured exclusivity to Prince’s new album ‘HITNRUN.’ However, news surfaced last week that Tidal has had to loosen the grip on the album.

Prince initially stopped the use of his album with all digital music companies except Tidal, including Spotify, Rdio, and Apple Music. Prince’s Spotify page read, “Prince’s publisher has asked all streaming services to remove his catalog. We have cooperated with the request, and hope to bring his music back as soon as possible.”

Tidal was the single vendor for the CD Bundle, and the only site Prince fans could stream it. But many thought you had to be a subscriber to purchase the retail CD bundle for $21.59 (plus shipping and handling) or $17.99 to digitally download the album.

Prince joined Tidal came at no surprise. His statement on the matter read:

“After one meeting, it was obvious that Jay Z and the team he has assembled at Tidal recognize and applaud the effort that real musicians put into their craft to achieve the very best they can at this pivotal time in the music industry.”

Also in a 2011 interview with The Guardian, Prince said:

“We made money [online] before piracy was real crazy. Nobody’s making money now except phone companies, Apple and Google. I’m supposed to go to the White House to talk about copyright protection. It’s like the gold rush out there. Or a carjacking. There’s no boundaries. I’ve been in meetings and they’ll tell you, Prince, you don’t understand…it’s dog-eat-dog out there. So I’ll just hold off on recording.”

Jay-Z’s streaming service pays 75 percent of its royalties to artist; whereas Apple Music only pays 71.5 percent and Spotify’s 70 percent.

Last week, it was announced that more options were available to purchase HITNRUN. The album is now on Amazon, iTunes and other digital marketplaces. Tidal also reduced their digital price to $9.99, just the same as iTunes.