Jul 17, 2015 11:25 AM EDT
Birdman Files Lawsuit Against Jay Z-Owned Tidal For Releasing Lil Wayne's Music

Lil Wayne's record label Cash Money filed a lawsuit against the music streaming service, Tidal, for releasing the artist's mix tape exclusively without the company's consent, Business Insider reports.

This followed Lil Wayne's on-stage announcement saying he "signed a deal" with Jay Z, which brought confusion on whether the rap singer is finally leaving Birdman's record label. His management later made it clear the "deal" he was referring to was with Tidal, which he, Jay Z, and other music artists co-own.

In his continuing feud with Cash Money and its CEO, Bryan "Birdman" Williams, Lil Wayne reportedly breached his contract by allowing Tidal to use his music from the album, Free Weezy Album, without asking permission from his music boss.

Cash Money even trashed his latest release for getting "tepid reviews", making it hard for them to sell his records.

Birdman filed a $50 million lawsuit against the music streaming service claiming it's "a desperate and illegal attempt to save their struggling streaming service."

Tidal, which has not released a comment until now, defended its side, saying the hip-hop artist's Cash Money contract was non-exclusive and that Lil Wayne gave them license to release his music.

The music streaming service owned by big musicians such as Jay Z, Beyonce, Kanye West, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Usher and Madonna continues to suffer its losing battle against bigger rivals, Spotify and Apple Music.

Despite setting itself apart from other music streaming services by better music quality and promising artists to pay bigger royalties, Tidal fell short in its number of paying subscribers.

Just last month, the company booted off their CEO, Peter Tonstad and was wished "the best for the future" by the company's spokesman.

Tonstad was the second CEO within three months, after the music streaming company was launched in a highly-publicized press conference in March.

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