Apple In Talks To Buy Jay Z-Owned Tidal Streaming Service (9to5mac.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple is in talks to acquire the Jay Z owned streaming service, Tidal. 9to5Mac reports: "While specific details are unclear at this point, Apple acquiring Tidal would give it an incredible leg up when it comes to negotiating for exclusive streaming rights. Tidal is currently owned by Jay Z and a variety of other artists, including Kanye West, Beyonce, Chris Martin, Jack White, and many more. Negotiations between Apple and Jay Z are reportedly still early and 'may not result in a deal,' according to the report. Apple is interested in Tidal because of its strong ties to artists, many of which are owners. Tidal has secured the exclusive streaming rights to a handful of notable albums in recent months, including Beyonce's Lemonade and Kanye West's The Life of Pablo." Earlier this year, a report claimed that Samsung, Google and Spotify had all considered buying the streaming service.

Comments

Or....

[Anonymous Coward]

Tidal, desparate for a sale, release rumours that its in talks to be bought with someone with deep pockets, in order to motivate someone with deeper pockets and poor impulse control.

Re: Or....

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone alert Bachmanity Capital!

4 easy steps

[gamenfo]

This seems like a perfect strategy for a group of musicians mad that apple / spotify / etc are all not making them enough money.

1. Start a streaming service
2. Release exclusive albums
3. Wait to be bought
4. PROFIT!

Re:4 easy steps

[Swampash]

Correction:

2. Have the exclusive streaming rights to Prince's catalog in the year that he dies

and nothing of any value

[Anonymous Coward]

would be bought.

Re:and nothing of any value

[dysmal]

Pretty sure Windows Phone has a larger user base than Tidal.

Re: and nothing of any value

[slazzy]

I'll tip my zune to that!

Crap like this

[rsilvergun]

is why I'd like to see a return to the old tax rates from the 50s,60s and 70s before "Reganomics" took hold. When you've got as much cash as Apple why _not_ just buy every single possible competitor... I mean, wasn't Tidal another one of those services started _because_ of the crappy deals Apple gave artists?

Re:Crap like this

[PopeRatzo]

So you'd like to go back to 20+% interest rates, rationing gas, and horrible unemployment?

The country did pretty well when the top income tax rate was 90%.

Re:Crap like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. See here. It presents the bare facts of marginal rates adjusted to 2013 dollar values for direct comparisons. Notice the swift decline in the highest marginal tax leading up to the the stock market crash in 1929, and only in 1932 returned from the disastrous 25% to the 40-50%+ normal before the crash era, roughly when the US economy was brought to recovery with the New Deal. Since then fluctuations have held up roughly the same pattern - wealth interest lowering the highest marginal rate only for financial collapse to restore it to a sustainable and significantly higher rate.
This data damns the fantasies of the wealthy that they are the best users of funds gained at such disproportionate rates compared to the population.

Re:Crap like this

[thegarbz]

I mean, wasn't Tidal another one of those services started _because_ of the crappy deals Apple gave artists?

I thought it was a service started because a self-obsessed douche-bag was overly self-obsessed, thought he was the worlds greatest producer, and worlds greatest businessman, and then couldn't figure out why people pirated his stuff when he released his self-obsessed album on an obscure platform no one uses.

It would be a real bad outcome for Apple to buy this. Not for Apple, but because self-important shits who have an epic failure of an idea don't deserve the windfall success of another company buying out a competitor for ... reasons.

I mean it's not like Tidal is a threat to Apple's model. People's subscription lasted precisely as long as it took to get a copy of Kanye's latest verbal diarrhea in digital form, and then abandoned it.

Let me get this straight

[BuypolarBear]

Let me get this straight: they like that it's owned by artists, so they're going to buy it from those artists? Amazing how they can't see the problem with this.

To be fair it was never 90%

[rsilvergun]

it was a 90% _marginal_ rate. 90% taxes on income after $2 million, IIRC (and that was in 1960s money, something like $17 million in today's money). The 1% paid the same taxes as a coal miner up to that coal miner's salary.

Re:To be fair it was never 90%

[PopeRatzo]

it was a 90% _marginal_ rate. 90% taxes on income after $2 million, IIRC (and that was in 1960s money, something like $17 million in today's money). The 1% paid the same taxes as a coal miner up to that coal miner's salary.

OK, I agree with you. We need to have a 90% marginal rate on income over $17million. We can agree that's a good starting point.

Zero

[dysmal]

That is the amount of fucks given about the prospect of Apple gobbling up the most hyped music streaming service that no individual actually knows a subscriber of.

Re:Zero

[teg]

That is the amount of fucks given about the prospect of Apple gobbling up the most hyped music streaming service that no individual actually knows a subscriber of.

I subscribe to it, and have done so for many years - I started way before Jay Z bought it. Back in the day, it had nice curated playlists - which spotify did not have. It also added lossless streaming, which I wanted.

These days, the playlists in Apple Music are far more numerous and fits me better - the increased focus on music I don't like in Tidal (hip hop) makes a exit more likely. If only Apple Music had lossless....

A relevant quote

[BuypolarBear]

"There's a sucker born every minute." -P. T. Barnum

Re:Oh crap

[oldmac31310]

You're probably very right.