Prince's Estate Is Suing Jay Z Over Streaming Rights

Prince’s estate, specifically NPG Music Publishing and NPG Records Inc., filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Roc Nation for alleged copyright infringement. 

The Star Tribune reports that the late musician’s estate is suing Jay Z over who has the right to stream Prince’s music. According to the lawsuit, TIDAL and NPG entered into an agreement on Aug. 1, 2015 for streaming and selling Prince’s album HitNRun: Phase 1, which was released Sept. 7, 2015. TIDAL was given exclusive rights to the material for 90 days.

The lawsuit goes on to claim that TIDAL misinterpreted the agreement and began “exploiting many copyrighted Prince works” as well as the new album. 

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Roc Nation and TIDAL believe the arrangement gave it the right to “exclusively stream [Prince’s] entire catalog of music, with limited exceptions,” according to an earlier report from Billboard. 

Recently, Universal Music Group managed to snag the publishing rights to the late legend’s catalog and it seemed they’d get streaming too, but this lawsuit puts the fight for streaming rights to Prince’s catalog on hold.  

Roc Nation is asking that its agreement be allowed to stand, while Prince’s estate is seeking damages on copyright infringement grounds.