Nine Inch Nails

If Apple plans to offer artist exclusives as a way to encourage sign-ups to its rebranded Beats Music streaming service, it will be facing new competition. TechCrunch reports that Tidal, the high-definition music service being relaunched later today by new owner Jay Z, is set to announce some exclusive deals with big-name artists.

Tidal is […] reportedly making a move to snag new releases by some of the biggest musicians of the moment including Kanye West, Madonna and Daft Punk […]

Tidal’s plan of attack will be to ink first-window deals with the artists, where Tidal would get first releases of tracks from big-name artists ahead of any other digital streaming services.

The artists named in the report have all been using the #tidalforall hashtag in recent tweets and Instagram posts … 
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<em>Trent Reznor with Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dre Dre</em>

When Apple announced plans to acquire Beats Electronics and Beats Music earlier this year, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor’s involvement with the streaming music service under Apple’s ownership quickly came in question. A spokesperson for Beats Music said Reznor was still with the company at the time and we reported that Reznor would in fact join Apple despite major staff changes at Beats during the transition. Reznor, who has been credited as Beats Music Chief Creative Officer, has finally opened up about his current role at Apple in an interview with Billboard revealing that he’s “fully in it right now” on an unannounced music project…
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Update: A spokesperson for Beats Music confirmed to us that “Trent Reznor is still with Beats Music.”

Jimmy Iovine has long credited Nine Inch Nails frontman and Beats Music Chief Creative Officer Trent Reznor as a driving force behind the success of the service. Reznor, however, is now rumored to have left the company as it finalizes its $3B sell to Apple. The news comes from a line in a USA Today report over the weekend that curiously doesn’t mention a source of the information:

(Curiously, Beats’ chief creative officer, Trent Reznor, the singer-songwriter and producer of Nine Inch Nails fame responsible for Beats’ tastemaking, has reportedly left the company. Also, one of Beats’ principal technology executives, Fredric Vinna, has recently gone to Spotify, and its co-founder, Ola Sars, to a Spotify-backed venture.)

Beats Music didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story, but Billboard reports that a spokesperson for Beats and for Reznor claim the report is inaccurate:
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