Although it can be assumed that a high profile release such as this would have also resulted in many new customers for the company, the piracy monitoring and analytics specialist MUSO has reported that the album was illegally downloaded just under a million times in its first 72 hours.
To add insult to industry, Snoop Dogg took to YouTube to praise the album, while at the same time admitting that he too had a pirated copy.
“I don’t got TIDAL, so a n***a had to bootleg it to me,” said Snoop. “I’m on iTunes and shit, I don’t understand this. I went to iTunes looking for his album and I couldn’t find it but my homie had to send it to me.”
4:44 is expected to receive a wider release later this week.
Watch the video below.