Grooveshark closes its doors immediately – update

Grooveshark will stop its music service with immediate effect as part of a deal with major record labels. The company was sued and may have to pay damages of up to $ 736 million .

At the time of writing, the music service’s web page only contains a short statement. In it, the company says that it has made serious mistakes ‘despite good intentions’. “We have not obtained licenses from rights holders for most of the music on our service. That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation.’

Grooveshark was founded in 2006. Users could upload songs to the music service themselves, unlike, for example, Spotify or Deezer, where the music library is compiled by the service itself. The songs uploaded to Grooveshark also included music for which no copyright licenses had been obtained. Grooveshark nevertheless thought it was within the law, because it removed this music on request.

Although Grooveshark has entered into licensing deals over the years with record companies such as EMI and Sony, the service was often the subject of lawsuits. In recent months, Grooveshark has suffered some heavy losses in court. At the beginning of April, for example, a judge ruled that the parent company of the music service, the Escape Media Group, had to pay a maximum of 420 million dollars, 374 million euros, to EMI. The record company sued the music service in 2012, because the service would not comply with the licensing deal. Grooveshark defended itself by stating that it met safe-harbor regulations because it removed music after a complaint. The judge did not agree, because the service would not do enough to keep users who went wrong.

After the ruling, Grooveshark announced that it would tighten its anti-piracy policy. For example, it would register offenders in a database and give record companies better tools to detect possible infringing material. At the end of March, the service also came with a new paid subscription form. Free listening, previously unlimited, was thus limited to three songs per day.

Grooveshark also had another lawsuit filed by nine record companies, including Sony Music Entertainment, Arista Music and Warner Bros. Records. In September last year, the judge in that case ruled that the Escape Media Group and its founders are liable for uploading thousands of illegal songs. Not only would the company not do enough to prevent illegal numbers, Grooveshark employees themselves have knowingly uploaded thousands of illegal files. A few days ago it was announced that the Escape Media Group may have to pay damages of $ 736 million to the plaintiffs.

As part of the now closed record deal, Grooveshark will close its doors, delete copyrighted material from its database and transfer the brand name, patents and ownership of the website to the record companies.

Update May 4 9:44 AM: Grooveshark is paying a $50 million settlement, approximately $45 million, to avoid a potential $736 million claim. The decision was announced in a New York court on Friday afternoon, May 1, after the formal paperwork was handed over.