Prince’s Estate Says TIDAL Illegally Streamed the Late Artist’s Music

Source: Jamie McCarthy / Getty

Prince’s estate is going after Jay Z and his streaming service, Tidal.

In October, Jay-Z made a $40 million offer for the exclusive rights to Prince’s catalog of unreleased music. Prince’s estate rejected the bid, stating it didn’t want to allow “Roc Nation to exploit any of the intellectual property assets of the Estate.” according to TMZ.

Soon after Jay Z’s offer made news, it was announced Universal Music Publishing Group had inked an agreement with the late singer’s estate.

Though Prince had given exclusive streaming rights to Tidal back in 2015, his estate claims that the streaming service was not authorized to release 15 of his albums following his death in April of 2016.

Since Jay Z and TIDAL were not given permission to stream those projects, the company could be forced to pay up. Prince’s estate has acknowledged that the singer made a deal with Jay Z for the release of his 2015 album, HitNRun Phase One; however, they claim the did not have any evidence that Prince received the $750,000 payment to close the deal.

We will update you on this story as it develops….