As if Kanye West didn't have enough problems being $US53 million in debt, it now seems the hip-hop artist might have been caught trying to steal a fellow artist's music software.

West posted what seemed like an innocuous photo to Twitter on Tuesday:

But a closer look at West's browser tabs shows something awkward.

It appears West had been doing a bit of research on Serum, a piece of audio editing software published by the house music artist Deadmau5 and his music label, Xfer Records.That's all fine and dandy, until you look at the next tab over, which suggests West could have been looking for ways to illicitly download Xfer Records' software with the peer-to-peer, file-sharing technology Bittorrent.

The tab name makes reference to The Pirate Bay, the infamous file-sharing site, though TorrentFreak points out that the page West was on is probably an affiliate of the official Pirate Bay site.

Another tab mentions 'MediaDownloader', software that would allow West to rip music straight from YouTube.
West's motives are still just speculation (and TMZ suggests the whole thing was a prank), but within moments of the tweet, West's own followers called him out on it, and Deadmau5 himself weighed in with an expletive-laden response.

Serum carries a price tag of $US189 ($259) — pretty hefty if you're an amateur, but probably of little consequence for someone who readily concedes he still has enough to buy furs and houses for his family.

This scenario would be a little less notable if West hadn't just signalled his interest in suing The Pirate Bay after it allegedly facilitated the theft of West's new album, 'The Life Of Pablo', which was released exclusively on the streaming service Tidal and has been downloaded through peer-to-peer hundreds of thousands of times.

Hours later, West addressed Deadmau5's comment in a ten tweet storm, inquiring about the mouse head the artist dons and asking if he'd perform at his daughter North's birthday party because she loves a particular Disney character. He did not comment on the screenshot of his tabs.

"I need you to perform at her party with specifically a minnie mouse dead-mow-five head," West tweeted, "not a mickey mouse dead-mow-five head."

West concluded the rant by tweeting "I want to stream you performing in a Minnie Mouse head on Tidal", tagging an account that is not run by the streaming service but rather appears to be related to Japanese group Tokyo Basement Boyz.

An hour later he corrected his mistake, posting a new tweet tagging TIDALHiFi.