Tidal (stylized as TIDAL) is a Norwegian subscription-based music, podcast and video streaming service that offers audio and music videos. Tidal was launched in 2014 by Norwegian public company Aspiro and is now majority-owned by Square, an American payment processing company.
With distribution agreements with all three major record labels and many independent labels, Tidal claims to provide access to more than 70 million tracks and 250,000 music videos. It offers two levels of service: Tidal Premium (AAC at 320 kbit/s) and Tidal HiFi (CD quality – FLAC-based 16-Bit/44.1 kHz – and MQA – typically lossy 24-bit/96 kHz). Tidal claims to pay the highest percentage of royalties to music artists and songwriters within the music streaming market.In March 2015, Aspiro was acquired by Project Panther Bidco Ltd., which relaunched the service with a mass-marketing campaign, promoting it as the first artist-owned streaming service. In January 2017, Sprint Corporation bought 33% of Tidal for a reported $200 million. In March 2021, Square agreed to pay $297 million for majority ownership of Tidal.While some observers praised the high fidelity audio quality, and higher subscription fees that would result in higher royalties to the artists and songwriters, others felt the high subscription fees and exclusive Tidal content from the artists involved could lead to more music piracy. Tidal claimed to have over 3 million subscribers in 2016, although the veracity of those claims and the company's reported streaming numbers have been questioned. As of March 2021, Tidal operates in 61 countries.