Jay Z’s streaming service is reportedly being held to ransom by Sony.

Tidal could end up losing the catalogue of one of its most high profile co-owners if the company can’t come up with the money to pay a large advance for Sony, Bloomberg reports.

While Jay Z has been able to negotiate a favourable contract with Universal, and reportedly reached a deal with Warner earlier this month, sources claim that the streaming service has yet to reach a deal with Sony, which is demanding a large cash advance for the right to stream its catalogue. If the company can’t pay Sony, then it will lose the right to stream the music of Beyoncé who is signed to the major – a major embarrassment for a service that’s already had to bear the brunt of a lot of criticism.

While Tidal has claimed to have 900,000 users, analysts believe that many of these are people who cancelled their free trial after a month. If these claims are true, it wouldn’t be the first time Sony has held streaming services to ransom – last week a contract leaked that showed Spotify had paid Sony up to $42.5 million in advances.

Update: Sony Music CEO Doug Morris has countered these claims in a statement: “All of our content, including Beyoncé, is available through the Tidal service, and we have announced no plans to remove our catalog from Tidal. Like all of our other partners, we are rooting for Jay and Tidal to succeed.” You had us until the “rooting” part. [via RS]

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