Prince record label sues Jay Z's company for streaming his music on Tidal

Prince's record companies, NPG Records and NPG Music Publishing is suing rapper Jay Z's multimedia entertainment company, Roc Nation for copyright infringement, saying it was illegally streaming dozens of late Prince's songs on its music streaming service, Tidal even though it has the rights to only one of his albums according to court records.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in federal court in Minnesota, Minneapolis, claims Roc Nation has illegally streamed Prince hits such as ''If I Was Your Girlfriend'' and 1999 on its subscription-based streaming service.

"Roc Nation, through its Tidal service, is exploiting many copyrighted Prince works," reads the lawsuit.

The suit also claim that while Tidal was authorised to offer some Prince songs to its customers, the service increased the number around the time of Prince's death on June 7 without approval from the Prince estate trust.

In 2015, Prince made a deal with Jay Z in 2015 to stream his music on Tidal but the lawsuit says the deal applied only to one album, "Hit N Run: Phase One." 
 
Roc Nation filed a petition last week claiming it had the rights to two of Prince's albums, "Hit N Run: Phase One" and "Hit N Run: Phase Two," plus a previously unreleased album and also the right to stream Prince songs exclusively.

NPG says Roc Nation has also been inappropriately using pictures of Prince and related artwork.

Prince who died from an accidental overdose of the powerful painkiller opioid fentanyl in April 2016, left behind a trove of unreleased music.