Grooveshark closed!!!

It's a real pity... they closed because they did not (even try to??) get the rights to all the songs (just visit the site for the full text details). It was my reference for finding a single song or when I wanted to know what was on a full album or even to help me discover new albums from a specific artist. That website got me buying some songs on iTunes. A real pity I say...

Spotify killed the MP3 star; seriously - $10/mo, no legal issues, no need to move files/buy on iTunes.

Spotify will not let me in for some reason (I suspect border issues, but I'd like to be told I'm just doing it wrong);

Spotify is half the reason to have a cellphone/tablet; go through a proxy if you have to, it's everything you knew music listening could be..

It's not over yet; somebody who claims to have "worked with" Grooveshark and has roughly 90% of their database on hand has been bringing back the entire service under different addresses. It was Grooveshark.io earlier today..

Grooveshark is from my home town.

StarHalo said:

It's not over yet; somebody who claims to have "worked with" Grooveshark and has roughly 90% of their database on hand has been bringing back the entire service under different addresses. It was Grooveshark.io earlier today..

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Looks like they made it into a music download site... Not sure that will keep going for long.

28 year old Grooveshark co-founder Josh Greenberg was found dead in his FL home Sunday morning, no foul play/suicide suspected.

oh my. No foul play but I imagine the kind of pressure exerted on him and the threat of financial ruin wouldn't have helped

Strange.

I am a premium Spotify user and love their service. I was suspicious that Grooveshark was not operating legally and the recent shutdown confirmed that. As a musician, I can appreciate a company like Spotify that does everything by the book in order to provide both a great experience as well as pay artists/agencies their proper dues. The very few artists that don't want their music on Spotify or other legal streaming services are only fooling and cheating themselves. There will be many other Grooveshark-type sites out there to put an artist's music out in the public domain and give the artist no returns on it whatsoever.

Spotify not working for me, the next best things are 8tracks and listube. It seems like 8tracks will have some restrictions in the next month, though... curious to see how that will go.

Mr. Tone said:

I was suspicious that Grooveshark was not operating legally and the recent shutdown confirmed that.

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Well that depends. The legal status is still unknown and the closure was an agreement between the parties and not that of any jurisdiction.

For the smaller musos, they had a licensing agreement with independent labels.

The problem with grooveshark was that the execution was poor and they didn't generate enough revenue to keep the big parties happy. Always about the money, and while they thought about servicing the world, they should have had a better plan to make money.

Cataract said:

Spotify not working for me, the next best things are 8tracks and listube. It seems like 8tracks will have some restrictions in the next month, though... curious to see how that will go.

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I believe their is another legit streaming service called rdio that also may be worth a try.

Mr Floppy said:

Well that depends. The legal status is still unknown and the closure was an agreement between the parties and not that of any jurisdiction.

For the smaller musos, they had a licensing agreement with independent labels.

The problem with grooveshark was that the execution was poor and they didn't generate enough revenue to keep the big parties happy. Always about the money, and while they thought about servicing the world, they should have had a better plan to make money.

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Allowing users to upload virtually anything was bound to be full of unethical and illegal uploads that were then listened to by countless people. With YouTube, many uploads are original and belong to the people uploading them even though unauthorized songs and videos also get put up on YouTube. With Grooveshark, the majority of their servers were filled with music that didn't belong to the people uploading them. Grooveshark did provide links where the songs could be legally purchased which was nice. This seems to be similar to Napster except that songs weren't being downloaded illegally, just streamed.

I used Grooveshark for a while, too, as a listener. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, good thread.

Mr. Tone said:

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, good thread.

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Not too well for one.

The idea of royalty micro payment was a good one. It has worked for even YouTube. The fact that they didn't actually pay anyone was a problem.

It had potential to make lots with the model but I think they were after someone like Google to buy them out. Even YouTube had the same issues when they started. Now look at them, big money spinner, especially for employing lots of copyright lawyers, scouring it for infringements and sending take down notices to some little kids doing a cover.

Mr. Tone said:

I believe their is another legit streaming service called rdio that also may be worth a try.

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Thanks for reminding me about rdio, I'll give it a try.

Cataract said:

Thanks for reminding me about rdio, I'll give it a try.

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No problem, let us know.

Cataract said:

Thanks for reminding me about rdio, I'll give it a try.

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Give Google Music a try too. Spotify's mobile app didn't do it for me, so I tried all the different services. Google has the best search (of course), but also the best organization, interface, and everything else. They're all $10/month and have pretty much the same music, so interface was key for me.

Good to know