Norwegian authorities have opened an investigation into reports that millions of Tidal’s streams never happened, reports Dagens Næringsliv, a Norwegian financial newspaper. Økokrim, Norway’s National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime, is conducting the investigation after reports emerged last May that 320 million streams of Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo were fraudulent.
If true, inflating the number of streams that each album received would artificially increase the royalty payments for each artist. The same month that reports emerged about the fake streaming numbers, Tidal was reportedly months behind on its royalty payments to three major record companies. The...