Rihanna's much-anticipated new album "Anti" was accidentally leaked online on Jay-Z's streaming service Tidal on Wednesday shortly before its official release, which was scheduled for Friday, Jan. 29.
Now, the question arises is how was the album leaked?
In an interview with Spin, Tidal has claimed that Rihanna's new album "Anti" got leaked due to a system error.
"Look, we know what happened here, in the sense that unfortunately we still rely on systems and there was a system error," said Grace Kim, Tidal's director of Marketing, reported The Independent. "But I don't think it hurt at all."
A Tidal representative later clarified that the system error was caused by Universal Music Group and not Tidal. Universal Music is a distribution partner of Roc Nation, the label on which "Anti" was released.
Rihanna's new album "Anti" was streamed 13 million times and downloaded 1 million times in mere 14 hours of launch on Tidal. The RIAA has certified the album as Platinum.
It is to be noted that unlike the RIAA, Billboard and Nielsen aren't counting the pre-release copies of the album purchased by Samsung into their first-week chart numbers.
According to Spin, the album was purchased over 400,000 times on Tidal. Out of the album's global sales via Tidal, Billboard will only be counting US sales.
Rihanna's new album "Anti" includes 13 tracks namely "Consideration" (feat. SZA), "James Joint", "Kiss It Better", "Work" (feat. Drake), "Desperado", "Woo", "Needed Me", "Yeah, I Said It", "Same Ol' Mistakes", "Never Ending", "Love On The Brain", "Higher" and "Close To You."
Rihanna's previously released singles including "FourFiveSeconds," the collaboration with Kayne West and Paul McCartney, "B*tch Better Have My Money" and "American Oxygen" have not been included in the album's track list.
"Anti" was released on iTunes and other online music stores on Jan. 29. The album will be released in physical format on Feb. 5.
