A lot has changed since Apple first released the iPod over a decade ago. The company has had to adapt its digital offerings over the past few years by releasing its own music streaming service to compete with the likes of Spotify, Pandora, and others. While Apple has done its best to secure exclusives with artists over the past year or so, there are also things that it cannot control, like when an artist no longer wants to continue to offer their music on the service. While this kind of thing is rare, that seems to be the case with Jay Z, as the artist has now pulled a majority of his albums from Apple Music and also Spotify.
There hasn"t been an official announcement from the artist as to why his catalog was pulled, but Spotify did clarify that it was done so at the artist"s request. Jay Z is a co-owner of music streaming service Tidal, along with a dozen or so other high profile artists. There is speculation that he has pulled most of his catalog from major rival services to make it an exclusive offering to the service he owns. Oddly, the albums still remain on Google"s music streaming service for the time being.
Source: The Verge | Image via Apple