There are swirling reports that Apple is eyeing Jay Z's music service, Tidal. The Cupertino-based company feels that if it acquires the streaming app, it can help to strengthen its own Apple Music.
According to The Wall Street Journal, persons who are knowledgeable of the issue report that the tech giant and Tidal are in a discussion and may not end up with a good agreement. However, the reported deal between the two parties has not been disclosed. A spokesman from Tidal, on the other hand, explained that their executives did not hold any meetings with Apple.
The reason the multinational technology corporation could be interested in Jay Z's music business it to have the rights to its exclusive artists like Beyonce, Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Usher and J Cole, among others.
To recall, RTE Entertainment noted that Beyonce's husband bought Tidal from Aspiro, a Swedish company, in March 2015 for $56 million after some reports surfaced that it was not giving royalties to its artists.
Tidal also has exclusive rights to release Rihanna and Beyonce's music. It is also the only streaming service that holds the back catalog of the late Prince.
Tidal has a monthly charge of $9.99 for Tidal Premium and $19.99 for Tidal HiFi. The company boasts that it has a whopping 4.2 million paying subscribers as of this writing.
At Tidal's launch last year, Jay Z was surrounded by a lot of famous music stars in New York, The Guardian cited. West, Alicia Keys and of course, Beyonce were all present in the event. They were joined by Tidal's co-owners, Calvin Harris and Chris Martin, through a video link.
Not too long after, Tidal started "exploratory talks" with some possible partners like Rhapsody, which is now called Napster.
The current talks about the two major streaming services come after a year Apple debuted its own music app, Apple Music. On June 13, the iPhone-maker announced that it now has 15 million paying subscribers that pay $9.99 a month for one person and $14.99 for families.
It also mentioned that it is about to revamp Apple Music in response to an upcoming software update for iPhone. This it to fix the issues users are complaining about regrding hard navigation and the confusing current operating system. Apple acquired Apple Music from Beats Electronics for $3 billion in May 2014.
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