JAY-Z, TIDAL launch free tier service, which now offers direct artist payouts and fan-centered royalties for the first time ever. Following the $302 million sale to Square earlier this year, the first major changes to TIDAL have happened today. The Streaming service now has three tiers, Tidal Free, Tidal HiFi and Tidal HiFi Plus.
Shockingly, the Tidal Free service will give listeners access to everything on the platform and will have limited ads. With Tidal HiFi Plus, this will introduce revenue for direct artists payouts, as well as introducing user-centric payments.
This becomes the first ever service to payout artists, based on their streaming activity, not related to royalties from their labels. Listeners will be able to track their top artists every month through My Activity feature, which we’re curious if bots will take over the app in a new way of farming streams.
The company issued a statement saying, “10% of the subscription fee from HiFi Plus users will go to their most listened to artist that month.” This is important, considering no money is made by any artists, unless they’re touring and selling merchandise. Take a look at TIDAL’s breakdown below.
Our focus hasn’t changed, it’s only growing stronger.https://t.co/GalXEBOZgX
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) November 17, 2021
New tiers: Free, HiFi, and HiFi Plus
TIDAL now has three options for U.S. fans to choose from, each with access to the same catalog of 80+ million songs & videos. These new tiers are an important step allowing us to continue building products to empower both artists and fans. pic.twitter.com/hvwAyTQUhL
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) November 17, 2021
New: $10 TIDAL HiFi
Starting today, everyone can access HiFi sound quality at our $10 tier — which we’re calling HiFi to make it easy.
Today’s loyal TIDAL listeners at this tier will have their audio quality upgraded and will see a new activity feed to track their streaming.
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) November 17, 2021
New: Direct Artist Payouts
This program will give artists access to another payment stream by allocating 10% of monthly subscriptions at the HiFi Plus tier to each listener’s most streamed artist.
Artists can now benefit directly from their biggest fans on TIDAL. pic.twitter.com/3cfDJm8YCO
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) November 17, 2021
Fan-Centered Royalties will not be aggregated.
Instead, royalties will go to the artists that TIDAL users actually stream, so fans can directly support the artists they love. (What a concept, right?)
This will start in January 2022 at our HiFi Plus tier. pic.twitter.com/Q8z4fleYOc
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) November 17, 2021
We're working to create a place that is better for artists and their fans. Because we love music. And the artists who create it. And the fans who crave it.
Today we're sharing progress on some new stuff: TIDAL Free, $10 HiFi, Direct Artist Payouts, and Fan-Centered Royalties. https://t.co/ovR3iR5eYT
— TIDAL (@TIDAL) November 17, 2021
