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| Jay Z told Billboard he launched Tidal because he "didn't like the direction music was going" |
Tidal – the £20-a-month CD-quality music streaming service funded by Jay Z – labelled rival Apple as ‘Big Brother’ in a post on its website.
Digital music on-demand service Tidal has slammed Apple – branding it ‘Big Brother’ – for blocking it from streaming a video of a set by rapper Drake.
"Apple is interfering with artistry and will not allow this artist to stream," Tidal posted on its website when the stream was cut.
"Sorry for Big Brother’s inconvenience. We will be back after the performance.”
Apple reportedly threatened to sue Tidal for some $20 million, around £12.9 million, if Drake’s live performance made an appearance on the rival website, the New York Post reported.
But it turns out the iPhone manufacturer, which launched a Spotify-like streaming service of its own earlier this year, was not to blame after all.
Drake’s manager retaliated to the post by accusing the Jay Z led streaming service of a “publicity stunt”.
The Started from the Bottom singer’s management said it was "100 percent" his decision not to stream the performance.
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| Beyonce and Daft Punk were also at the Tidal launch event |
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| A number of chart topping artists pledged support to the Tidal music streaming service |
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| Jay Z, Calvin Harris, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj and more stars launch Tidal in New York earlier this year |
"Apple doesn’t have the power to stop us from being part of a live stream," the performer’s management has stated.
“The decision to not have Drake participate in the Tidal steam has nothing to do with Apple or Drake’s deal. Point blank, 100%. I made a business decision.
“If you’re going to say something about the situation publicly, you should tell the truth. They saw the opportunity to take a situation and spin it in their favour as a publicity stunt.”
Tidal hopes to differentiate itself from rivals including Rdio, Xbox Music, Google Play Music All Access, Spotify, Deezer and Napster by offering 16-bit FLAC format songs.
FLAC – which stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec – is a lossless compression format. This means it acts more like a ZIP file – FLAC will compress an audio file but it should sound identical in quality to its unzipped equivalent.
As a result, FLAC files are typically much larger than those stored in other audio formats, like Mp3 and Ogg Vorbis (which is used by Spotify).
Mp3 and Ogg Vorbis are both lossy formats – meaning details in the audio will be shaved off to dramatically reduce the size of the file. Guitars, cymbals and reverb are the sounds most often affected by Mp3 compression.
Tidal says its high definition audio is of "CD-quality" and will be available to stream online and to the company's iOS and Android mobile apps.
The service allows its users to download the audio files as streaming large, high definition audio files on a mobile network connection could be problematic.
Tidal charges $19.99 a month in the US – and £19.99 for British audiophiles.
A lower-cost £9.99 subscription is on-offer to match Apple Music and Spotify's pricing.
This cheaper tier still allows users access to Tidal's entire music library – albeit in a lower quality format.
Jay Z's new streaming service does not offer a free adverting-supported option.
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