This year has been good for music. Artists who took hiatuses like Adele, Rihanna and Frank Ocean have all released albums to both commercial and critical acclaim. Two new streaming services, Tidal and Apple Music were launched this year, becoming major competitors with Spotify. Streaming has all but replaced downloading and is key in determining an artist's commercial dominance.

Take Beyonce's Lemonade or Kanye's The Life Of Pablo for example, both artists gave exclusive streaming rights to Tidal first, meaning that if you wanted to listen, you had to subscribe. Drake, Frank Ocean and Travis Scott have all followed suit and are now partnered with Apple Music.

Adam Behr of Independent News writes, "Streaming services are now a key battleground for commercial dominance, with digital having overtaken physical sales and streaming edging ahead of downloads in the US. These exclusive deals – a relatively recent phenomenon, appearing with the launch of new platforms – constitute attempts to attract new customers by siloing those artists with the biggest fan bases."

So, what do you do if you subscribe to Tidal and an artist gives exclusive streaming rights to Apple Music? Do you subscribe to Apple Music? For many, the answer is no.

"Frank Ocean released his long-awaited new album earlier this month to rapturous critical acclaim," Behr writes. "Despite this, many fans will have found it difficult to listen to, as the album is currently only available to stream on Apple Music." Essentially, exclusive streaming rights is used by streaming services to attract new users and lure others to switch.

Although popular, this tactic isn't always received well by users, as evidenced in the class-action lawsuit filed against Kanye West and Tidal in April. West claimed that "The Life of Pablo" would be exclusive to Tidal.

"My album will never be on Apple," he wrote on twitter. And it will never be for sale...You can only get it on Tidal."

Not only was TLOP released to Apple Music, it was released to Spotify as well. This was unacceptable for fan, Justin Baker-Rhett, who filed the class-action lawsuit, stating through his attorney Jay Edelson, "We believe that we will be able to prove to a jury that Mr. West and Tidal tricked millions of people into subscribing to their services and that they will ultimately be held accountable for what they did.”

Exclusive streaming rights may be the new tactic used by Apple Music and Tidal to compete, but ultimately, its the users who pay.