PornHub Streamed Kanye West’s ‘The Life Of Pablo’ For Free To Online Clients
The popular adult website Pornhub was recently caught red-handed streaming Kanye West’s album, The Life of Pablo, for free for its clients.
Since rapper Kanye West released his new album The Life of Pablo and made it only available for streaming on Tidal, he has suffered a huge spate of pirating, causing much anger and indignation from the rap star. Recently, it was the turn of the adult website PornHub, which streamed the album for free on their site.
According to a report by The Verge, the 18-track rap album was made available on PornHub for five days before being taken down on March 2, 2016. Apparently Kanye West had no idea what was happening until several eagle-eyed and web savvy Reddit users spotted the illegal stream on the PornHub site and started sharing links to the appropriate page on the adult content website.
However, the added attention of the Reddit users eventually caught the eye of 38-year-old West, who immediately demanded the illegal music stream be removed. Reportedly there is now a message where the download was previously available, reading: “Video has been removed at the request of KANYE WEST.”
Pornhub removes ‘The Life Of Pablo’ at @KanyeWest’s request https://t.co/ieAlXKnEq9 pic.twitter.com/TwBiLD7fkW
— Engadget (@engadget) March 3, 2016
Since the stream was taken down by PornHub management, Pigeons and Planes interviewed Corey Price, VP of the porno website, who explained how it all happened and that they immediately removed the offending content as soon as they received the DMCA notice.
When asked if the availability on PornHub of The Life of Pablo was the work of Kanye West himself, or an anonymous user of the website, Price explained, “Since we received a DMCA take down notice we assume it was not uploaded by Kanye, but you never know.”
Price did say that if an exclusive release had been made on PornHub of Kanye West’s album, it would have been a huge boost for the rapper and would definitely have improved his current financial situation.
Kanye West has made it abundantly clear that he wants his latest album, “The Life of Pablo,” to be a Tidal… https://t.co/OqbvDHoCCt
— INET HONDURAS (@INETHONDURAS) March 2, 2016
Reportedly the weirdest thing, “music-wise” that has been made available on PornHub in the past was an official release for the launch of the song “Black Dick” by Xiu Xiu.
However music downloads have been made available before on the XXX-rated PornHub website, with the company launching its own record label back in 2014. That record label released a music video for a song titled “Bust US rapper Waka Flocka Flame.” However, PornHub may have taken a step too far by releasing the controversial The Life of Pablo album by Kanye West.
Apparently, since its release on February 14, West’s album was said to have been downloaded for free over 500,000 times. Fans of the rap star are reportedly refusing to pay for a subscription to the music service Tidal, where it has been streaming exclusively since that date.
While Kanye West pleads poverty, according to a report by the International Business Times, he has been estimated to have lost a minimum of $10 million in album sales by not releasing The Life of Pablo on other streaming services, such as Spotify or Apple Music. Kanye West said the album will not be put up for sale, telling his Twitter fans, “My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal.”
“My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale…”
…well thank goodness for that.
— Yuri Banens (@yuribo) February 16, 2016
Reportedly, Kanye West has recently announced he is currently recording his next album, so far with the title Turbo Grafx 16. Whether Pornhub will manage to grab that for illegal streaming is unknown.
[Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images]
