New York, Mar 30 (EFE).– The artists have taken the initiative in resolving the business model crisis in the music industry and on Monday Jay Z gathered together in New York Madonna, Rihanna, Beyoncé and Alicia Keys, among others, to present Tidal, a “streaming” music platform intended to compete with Spotify.

While the industry is still lamenting the death of the CD and consumers are still frequently resorting to piracy to obtain the most popular songs, on Monday it was the artists – who recently had seemed relegated to focusing their profitmaking endeavors on concert tours and not album sales – who decided to establish an alternative to the prevailing model.

Jaz Z is the brains behind the Tidal operation, which offers – for $19.99 per month – a service to provide 25 million songs without advertisements, 75,000 music videos, a song identifier, and social network and reproduction list management functions.

All that, compatible with almost all mobile phone and computer operating systems, will be available in 31 countries and promises a superior sound quality to that of its competitors, although it also offers a $9.99-per-month option for people who just want conventional sound quality.

The famous rapper and visionary producer managed, in addition to conceiving this project, to get the music stars with the most hectic agendas in the world into the same room.

Madonna, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Daft Punk, Alicia Keys, two members of Arcade Fire, Jack White, Kanye West, Nicky Minaj and Usher, among others, signed the initial draft of the proposal and, by videoconference, Coldplay’s Chris Martin and singer-songwriter Calvin Harris participated in the historic moment.

At the main New York post office, it was Alicia Keys who acted as master of ceremonies for the international music “dream team” at a livestreamed announcement about Tidal.

“Our mission goes beyond commerce and technology,” Keys said. “Our intent is to preserve music’s importance in our lives. It’s the world’s true universal language.”

Keys said that the participating artists were seeking the health and sustainability of the music industry around the world.

Jay Z bought Tidal from the Swedish firm Aspiro in January for $56 million and, since then, he has been turning the platform around to adapt it to this business model focusing on livestreaming which, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, is valued at $1.8 billion.

According to The New York Times, Spotify currently has some 60 million users around the world, of whom 15 million pay the subscription fee and the others use the service free with advertising. It is predicted that Apple will also begin offering a streaming music service later this year. EFE