Grooveshark

Grooveshark email: How we built a music service without, um, paying for music

Grooveshark deliberately set out to build a huge online following without paying for the music it streamed and shared in order to establish a stronger negotiating position with record labels, according to internal emails included in court records.

Earlier this month, Universal Music Group, the largest of the four top record companies, filed a copyright lawsuit in federal court against Escape Media Group, parent company of Grooveshark, a music service that enables users to share songs with other users. In the complaint, Universal Music accuses Grooveshark's leadership of copyright infringement and claims that managers uploaded pirated songs themselves.

Grooveshark … Read more

Grooveshark slams Universal's copyright lawsuit

Grooveshark.com said today that a lawsuit accusing it of posting copyrighted music is based on a "gross mischaracterization of information."

The comments came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday by Universal Music Group accusing the music-sharing site of posting more than 100,000 pirated songs to its site. The lawsuit identified executives at the company as leading the effort by personally posting thousands of copyrighted songs.

"Universal's claims rest almost entirely on an anonymous, blatantly false Internet blog comment and Universal's gross mischaracterization of information that Grooveshark itself provided to Universal," Marshall … Read more

The 'Shark's new, updated Groove

Grooveshark released a major update to its popular streaming music service with a slew of new features and changes. We jumped into the waters to play around with the bigger, badder shark and see how it compared to similar alternatives.

The first thing you'll notice is a sleeker, cleaner layout. The universal sidebar on the left has been removed and consolidated into the My Music option. We found this change to be welcoming, as it not only frees up space, but also brings the spotlight to the navigation changes. Grooveshark has organized navigation and exploration into four main … Read more

Lawsuit claims Grooveshark workers posted 100,000 pirated songs

In a copyright lawsuit filed today, Universal Music Group says it has obtained e-mails and other records that show Grooveshark's leaders led an effort to post more than 100,000 pirated songs onto the music service.

"[The business records of Escape Media Group, Grooveshark's parent company,] establish unequivocally," Universal's lawyers wrote in the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, "that the sound recordings illegally copied by Escape's executives and employees, include thousands of well known sound recordings owned by UMG."

Grooveshark has long said that it is not liable … Read more

Music publishers file copyright suit against Grooveshark

Grooveshark just can't seem to shake its copyright woes.

A group of songwriters and music publishers filed a lawsuit on July 15 in Tennessee against the digital-music service, claiming Grooveshark enables users to obtain music illegally and therefore is liable for copyright infringement, contributory infringement, and vicarious infringement.

Grooveshark, based in Gainesville, Fla., is a service that offers free music by enabling users to post their own tracks to the site and then share them with other users.

Grooveshark's "users and subscribers are actively infringing plaintiffs' copyrighted musical compositions," the plaintiffs said in their complaint, filed … Read more

The 404 860: Where we're selling Spotify invites (podcast)

Spotify has finally made its way to the U.S., successfully striking deals with all four of the major record labels to provide a unique music-streaming service, and Wilson's already a member with a premium account. If you're weren't lucky enough to get an invite to the party, we'll be selling them to the highest bidder.

In other news, Jeff's friend brings us news about a man in China who built an iPad clone from scratch, except I already have my eyes set on a Buy.com deal for an Archos 7" Android tablet for $90 shipped! If you already have the Archos, let me know if it's worth the money, or if I should wait for Amazon's tablet to launch in October.

All this plus e-mails from the public on today's podcast!

The 404 Digest for Episode 860

Spotify lands in the United States. Chinese "hacker" makes iPad clone from scratch. Amazon to launch its own tablet in October.

Episode 860 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Google accused of hypocrisy on Grooveshark ban

A watchdog group that is also a longtime Google ally on copyright issues, has accused the company of being hypocritical when it recently removed a controversial music app from its app store.

Two weeks ago, CNET reported that Grooveshark, a music service that provides free access to songs by enabling users to post their own music to the site, had seen its app banned from the Android Market. It later came out that Google acted after receiving a complaint about Grooveshark from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the trade group for the four largest record companies. The search … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1451: Apple: finish Samsung!! (Podcast)

Tong stood in line all night for Mortal Kombat, while Molly went to bed with her laptop and her brand new Keynote download. Impressive, right? In the actual news, Apple files a major set of patent and trademark lawsuits against manufacturing partner Samsung, Netflix is doing family plans, and what happened to all those 1-800 numbers. Dial carefully children. Dial carefully.

Grooveshark 'surprised' by Google snub

Music-sharing service Grooveshark responded late today to having its Android app dumped from the Android Market, saying it wasn't sure why, exactly, the app had been pulled.

"We were surprised by Google's removal of the Grooveshark App from the Android Marketplace, and are still unclear as to what policies have now been violated," the company said in an e-mail to CNET.

As reported earlier today, Grooveshark, an online service that lets users upload songs and then share them with other users, saw its Android incarnation yanked by Google with little explanation. "We remove apps from … Read more

Google boots Grooveshark from Android Market

WASHINGTON--Google has removed Grooveshark's music app from the Android Market, a move that comes after some of the top music labels have accused the service of violating copyright law, sources said.

"We remove apps from Android Market that violate our policies," a Google spokesman said in response to questions from CNET. He did not specify what violations Grooveshark may have committed or whether Google had been pressured by the music industry to remove the app.

A Grooveshark representative was not immediately available for comment.