News: Grooveshark Terminates Service Over Legal Disputes
–Written by Kevin Madert
Another bastion in the realm of free-to-stream music has fallen, as longtime service Grooveshark has shuttered servers for good in the face of hefty litigation – try over $750 million in damages – from major record companies. This marks the end of several long legal battles between the industry and Grooveshark dating back to a 2009 lawsuit; the copyright infringement suit that finally shut them down was set in motion back in 2011.
Up until this week, the service offered millions of unlicensed songs for ad-supported listening, as well as a paid option that removed advertisements. While a large percentage of the songs found on the site were uploaded by users, Grooveshark employees also contributed their own music to flesh out the available music library.What’s perhaps most surprising is not that the service has been suspended, but that it took this long for it to happen. The site admitted wrongdoing – including a systemic failure to “secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service” – in a lengthy statement posted at the now-defunct grooveshark.com domain yesterday. In addition to shutting down, the company states it will “wipe clean all the data on our servers and hand over ownership of this website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights.”
Until this point the site has dodged legal action by claiming the service wasn’t actually infringing on copyrights, or that it was actively attempting to remove copyrighted content from the site. All that ends now, with the judge in the copyright case calling the site’s infringement “willful.” While nostalgia has us somewhat upset about the news, there are plenty of legal services that serve essentially the same purpose (see Spotify, YouTube, etc.), so Grooveshark users won’t have to go far to find a suitable replacement.
Dear music fans,
Today we are shutting down Grooveshark.
We started out nearly ten years ago with the goal of helping fans share and discover music. But despite best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service.
That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation.
As part of a settlement agreement with the major record companies, we have agreed to cease operations immediately, wipe clean all the data on our servers and hand over ownership of this website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights.
At that time of our launch, few music services provided the experience we wanted to offer and think you deserve. Fortunately, that’s no longer the case. There are now hundreds of fan friendly, affordable services available for you to choose from, including Spotify, Deezer, Google Play, Beats Music, Rhapsody and Rdio, among many others.
If you love music and respect the artists, songwriters and everyone else who makes great music possible, use a licensed service that compensates artists and other rights holders. You can find out more about the many great services available where you live here: http://whymusicmatters.com/find-music.
It has been a privilege getting to know so many of you and enjoying great music together. Thank you for being such passionate fans.
Yours in music,
Your friends at Grooveshark