Spotify has spoken out against Tidal's latest streaming exclusive.

Singer Beyoncé uploaded her surprise new record 'Lemonade' onto the platform at the weekend after a one-hour HBO special.

However, at the time of writing, the album isn't available on rival Spotify - but it has now been added to iTunes.

It follows Tidal's recent long exclusive of Kanye West's 'The Life Of Pablo', which took weeks to emerge elsewhere.

Spotify's global head of communications and public policy Jonathan Prince has said that lengthy exclusives are negative for both artists and fans.

He said: "We believe long-term exclusives are bad for artists and they’re bad for fans.

"Artists want as many fans as possible to hear their music, and fans want to hear the music they’re excited about - exclusives get in the way of both.

"Of course, we understand that short promotional exclusives are common, we don’t have a total policy against them, and we certainly respect the choice of artists to decide what’s right for them.

"Bottom line, we’re looking forward to sharing Beyoncé’s awesome new music with her millions of Spotify fans as soon as we can."

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Watch a trailer for Beyoncé's 'Lemonade' visual album below: