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It sucks to be Grooveshark right now. Universal Music recently filed a lawsuit alleging that Grooveshark’s employees illegally upload hundreds of thousands of copyrighted songs to the service to boost its usefulness. Universal Music produced emails from Grooveshark’s CEO in which he basically admitted that they were growing a tremendous user base “without paying a dime to any of the labels” – which doesn’t prove employees upload songs, but could throw a big dent in Grooveshark’s DMCA Safe Harbor claims. Oh yeah, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the emails apparently pissed off Sony and Warner, too, and now they’re likely gearing up to sue Grooveshark, too.
The news comes courtesy of the New York Times, who spoke to four people with knowledge of Sony and Warner’s plans. The lawsuits are expected to be filed by Thursday. Grooveshark released the following statement when presented with the info:
We respect the intellectual property of all artists, and our strict policies are designed to ensure that our users only upload content to which they are entitled. This is a policy which we vigorously enforce within D.M.C.A. requirements.
However, a refresher course from our article about Grooveshark’s CEO’s emails is in order: in order to qualify for the Safe Harbor provision, a service provider can’t profit from or even knowingly host infringing material, and it must take down violations it knows of. The following quote from one of CEO Sina Simantob’s emails puts all three of those requirements into doubt with Grooveshark – a fact that Sony and Warner probably took into consideration.
In our case, we use the label's songs till we get a 100 (million) uniques (visitors), by which time we can tell the labels who is listening to their music, where, and then turn around and charge them for the very data we got from them, ensuring that what we pay them in total for streaming is less than what they pay us for data mining. Let's keep this (quiet) for as long as we can.
Did Grooveshark bit off more than it can chew with this one, or do you think the company's TOS and flagging systems will actually earn it Safe Harbor in the eyes of the court?
Comments are closed on this article
Atomike
December 16, 2011 at 7:59am
This isn't really news. Anyone who thought GrooveShark was legal or moral is either a total idiot, or a complete idiot.
chart2006
December 15, 2011 at 7:38pm
Either the CEO is a complete idiot for putting this in an email, "papertrail,' or it's fabricated by Universal. Additionally how would Universal have come into possession of such emails? Something doesn't seam right with this. This email would have been the last thing I would have sent if CEO. If I were going to make a comment in such a capacity it would have been verbal. I personally think it's Universal trying be greedy dicks again.
kevaskous
December 15, 2011 at 12:29pm
I don't even care anymore, it's getting to the point that I won't have anything to do with major labels anyways, either bands are gonna start releasing their own shit (Which is becoming increasingly popular due to how much more money they make and how much more availability it gives the consumer) or I'mma just stop listening to music all together, at least in that regard.
I've spent hella money on my audio equipment and honestly the way I can currently get my music and the quality it comes in an't worth it, pretty well a waste. I don't got the money I used to, i can't afford spending hundreds of dollars a month in CD's, the whole ordeal is just becoming more of a money sink and headache then pleasure.
The above is a good example of why the music industry is failing, I should not feel that way, I should not be limited to what i can enjoy from a culture's gift simply because I'm not wealthy, I should not be limiting my equipment simply because I won't spend tons of cash. I will not continue to do so, I said I was gonna drop Spotify over it's bs from earlier, and I did but that wasn't the only reason. The audio quality was horrendous, even with paid. It wasn't worth my investment and so they lost it.
It's been proven time and again, if you don't beat the consumers over the head with the law book and what THEY (As in the label companies) think things should cost, the revenue increase far outweighs the loss per sale. Because of their greed they are losing out on consumers like myself who love music, and do whatever I can to support it, whatever little or lot it may be, fucking idiots.
