UPDATE (05/06/2015): The clone, at grooveshark.io, first surfaced Tuesday afternoon. A group of ex-employees are claiming responsibility, and promising a completely-restored version this week…
It’s official, the music streaming company Grooveshark has shut down. Grooveshark, which started in 2006 in Gainesville, Fla., has been in hot water for a while due to problems regarding music licenses and copyrighted material and whether allowing users to upload that material was legal or not.
The company released a letter on their homepage today stating:
“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 of the record companies’ copyrighted works and hadn over ownership of this website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights.”
The letter continues to say that if you love music and respect artists then you should use a licensed service that compensates artists.
Grooveshark now joins LimeWire and Napster in the illegal streaming graveyard. With Grooveshark gone, it makes you wonder if other music streaming services will soon meet the same fate.
