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Tidal Is Reportedly Months Behind On Royalty Payments To Labels (theverge.com)
According to a report from Dagens Naeringsliv, streaming service Tidal is "behind with payments directly to the three major international record companies." The claim is backed up by two executives from a label and its Sony-owned distributor. They say they have not seen royalty payments in over six months. The Verge reports: According to a translation by Music Business Worldwide, Sveinung Rindal, CEO of distribution company Phonofile (a Sony subsidiary), told the Norwegian paper, "It is correct that there are delays in payments from Tidal," while Frithjof Boye Hungnes, CEO of Propeller Recordings, confirmed, "We have not been paid since October ... People are talking about withdrawing [their music from Tidal]; I think there is a pretty upset mood." Last December, a separate report from the same newspaper said that Tidal was running out of money, suggesting that it only had about six months of working capital left. The news comes shortly after the service was accused of faking the streaming numbers for Kanye West and Beyonce. Tidal is denying any such wrongdoings, saying: "We have experienced negative stories about Tidal since its inception and we have done nothing but grow the business each year."
They stream supposedly lossless audio. Supposedly because you can pay for more expensive plans that give you lossy audio (go figure).
The idea behind it is somewhat sound - to offer high quality audio streaming. Instead of offering whatever those streams offer, you can stream losslessly encoded audio. Just like the maligned Pono store offered an easy way to buy lossless music.
Of course, it only appeals to those who can stand its much higher costs, so it's not something you'd use if you were listening on your phone.
It has a touch of audiophoolery to it, because you can pay even more for "MQA" audio (stands for "Master Quality Authenticated") which is supposedly a way to get "master studio quality audio" at lower bitrates (i.e., CD compatible). The trick is it's "backwards compatible" so you don't need an MQA player to listen to it, but one is preferred for "superior quality".
The quotes are because it's pretty much crap - while you do get smaller files, it's mostly because you're actually reducing sample rates and bit depth, so you're left with a 44.1k/16bit or a 48k/16bit stream run through an "MQA" encoder which performs noticeably worse than if you simply used FLAC.
Either way it's lossy, and even worse Meridian wants money from encoders, decoders and the like, and the wider audio community sees it as a poor half-assed way to "DRM" all music. "DRM" because the goal is not to protect rights, but rather, create a single monopoly standard getting everyone to pay Meridian for music.
They also offer DSD streams, for extra audiophoolery. (DSD is worse than PCM as s distribution format).