Prince’s Estate Sues Jay Z’s Roc Nation over Streaming Rights

It alleges that a “Letter of intent” was signed by NPG on August 1 a year ago giving TIDAL permission to stream Prince’s last studio album, Hit N Run: Phase 1 – with an exclusivity period of 90 days. He also negotiated a deal with Tidal to exclusively stream his album HitNRun: Phase 1 for the first 90 days of release.

TIDAL may be the only place you can stream Prince’s music, but it won’t be the home of The Purple Sage’s vaulted recordings.

Roc Nation’s petition makes note of that deal and says Tidal was not contacted about it.

Prince’s label NPG Records and NPG Music Publishing filed a federal suit on Tuesday (15Nov16) in the latest development in the estate’s battle against Jay Z’s streaming service.

Basically they signed on for one album but happen to be using Prince’s music from other albums as well.

We broke the story, Jay Z had offered around $40 million to take control of Prince’s unreleased tracks. In 2015, Prince pulled his music from all streaming services, but struck a deal with Tidal to premiere his LP Ht N Run: Phase One.

The lawsuit asks for the issue to be decided by a jury.

NPG Group and Roc Nation’s representatives did not immediately respond when contacted by CNBC.

The suit seeks copyright infringement damages and seeks to have the music removed from the streaming service.

More bad news – the estate is calling out Tidal for making 15 Prince albums available for streaming a couple months after his death.