Jay-Z’s new album, “Magna Carta Holy Grail,” was supposed to be available Thursday free of charge to 1 million Samsung smartphone users through a special app days before it hit the market, as part of an unconventional corporate sponsorship deal aimed at changing the rules of the game.
It wasn’t long before fans reported difficulty downloading the record, airing their grievances on Twitter, blogs and other social media channels.
But the glitches weren’t entirely unforeseen. Earlier in the week, after the special app had been released exclusively for Samsung devices on Google GOOG +0.80% Play, McAfee Mobile Security posted on its site that it had “identified a new Android Trojan embedded in a pirated copy” of the Jay-Z app, and noted the malware was programmed to replace the wallpaper on infected devices on July 4 with an image of President Barack Obama.
“To paraphrase lyrics from Jay Z, it seems Android malware has 99 problems and Android.AntiObscan just became another,” McAfee’s Tuesday post read.
Separately, fans complained about the real app, which required users to reveal their location and post pre-scripted updates to Twitter or Facebook in order to get lyrics for each track, resulting in oodles of social media spam.
Tweeted one fan sarcastically: ” Since I have woken up, 100% of my tweets have all been about ‘Magna Carta Holy Grail’ LOL.”
Samsung did not respond to requests for comment. A representative for Jay-Z declined to comment.
Though the Recording Industry Association of America agreed to change its certification rules for the release of “Magna Carta,” meaning the album could be “platinum” before it hit the market because of Samsung’s advance purchase of 1 million records for $5 each, some fans questioned Jay-Z’s strategy.
The Brooklyn hip-hop artist known as Donwill tweeted Thursday: “Jay-Z jammed up Samsung’s servers and forced everybody else to tune into terrestrial radio. #newrules for real.
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