Tidal blames Rihanna’s album leak on Universal Music Group...

According to a representative from Tidal, the premature leak of Rihanna’s latest album 'ANTi' was all Universal Music Group’s fault.

Tidal’s Director of Marketing Grace Kim says there was a system error. The rep says that Kim is “referring to a system error caused by Universal Music Group. The error was not something Tidal caused.” However, Kim says the leak hadn't harmed Rihanna in any way, because 'ANTi' still moved 1.4 million units in just 15 hours, resulting in an official Platinum certification by the RIAA. Confused?

The RIAA announced that Gold and Platinum benchmarks will count both sales and streams for single and album certifications. Rihanna's album was downloaded for free a million times due to Samsung paying for those free downloads. It explains the strategical reason why her team delayed the album to release it during the week the RIAA made changes to its formula.

She went Platinum with a free album, because streaming is now deemed part of record sales. This is why she is being accused of 'cheating' her way to a Platinum certification in less than 24 hours. Tidal are also claiming that 400,000 music consumers purchased 'ANTi', making it Rihanna's biggest success of her storied career.

You DO realise what this means right? Low selling artists will enjoy multi platinum album certifications in less than a year simply because all the sales will come from streaming. Yipeee Yipeee Yaaaay! Ashanti and Ciara can now go Platinum with their albums in less than a month. No one gets to have flop albums anymore!

Do you agree that streams should be allowed to contribute towards album certifications?