Grooveshark to face lawsuit from Warner, Sony: report

December 15, 2011 By Andrew Couts

Warner and Sony are allegedly planning to join Universal in suing Grooveshark for willful copyright infringement.

Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment will join Universal Music Group in a copyright infringement lawsuit against music streaming service Grooveshark, reports The New York Times. Information about the music companies’ plans come from four anonymous sources who were briefed on the matter.

Grooveshark’s was initially sued by Universal after a person claiming to be a Grooveshark employee posted a comment on Digital Music News that said many of the company’s workers, including its CEO and a number of vice presidents, personally uploaded more than 113,000 songs to the service. Grooveshark hit back at the accusations, saying that Universal was basing the suit on “blatantly false” data.

With a userbase of 35 million, Grooveshark maintains that its business is legal because it operates within the parameters of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA), which allows companies to host third-party content with impunity, as long as they abide by takedown orders from copyright holders. If, however, Grooveshark employees themselves uploaded tracks, they would be in violation of DCMA. Federal law allows for penalties of up to $150,000 per song, for this type of violation.

Showing 11 comments

Tim Bevins at 9:33pm 15th December 2011 Full disclosure: I buy all my music. Yeah, I'm that dumb.
Tim Bevins at 9:33pm 15th December 2011 If true, the Grooveshark employees should have used another peer-to-peer source for their music.
jesterking at 9:43am 15th December 2011 yeah and if SOPA is allowed to happen, you are going to see a lot more of this. Not just for streaming sites...
1. Andrew Couts at 9:47am 15th December 2011 Sadly, you are all too right...
  1. jesterking at 9:51am 15th December 2011 I know I am... I really don't want to be! If you are interested in the hearings/discussions on this... They are talking about it in committee as I type...http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/mark_12152011.htmlIf you want to watch live, there's a link to stream it to media player. I'm watching/listening to it right now.
  2. jesterking at 9:54am 15th December 2011 Actually, I just thought about this... I'm wrong... You wont see litigation happening. If SOPA were to pass, you would just see Grooveshark disappear. No word, no warning. Just gone. No court order, no lawsuits, nothing. Gone.Hell, for all we know Universal could have created a username and posed as an employee of Grooveshark, to implant "cause" for them to go after them... this is scary stuff.
    TechFreak at 10:22am 15th December 2011 Can the government just turn off a site like that?
    jesterking at 10:26am 15th December 2011 The government? The companies would do this! They put in a terminate action to the DNS providers, and it's a done deal. As good as gone.
    TechFreak at 11:53am 15th December 2011 Ok, that scares the hell our of me.
    jesterking at 11:57am 15th December 2011 yeah, basically it cuts out the need for a judge to rule on it... I could very well be wrong, but this is my understanding of the bill, as I read it. wording in the bill is so vague that corporations can go after competition. You think you've seen corporate warfare? just wait. I'm already looking for DNS servers outside of the US for me to hoard, just in case the government decides to move forward.
    
    jesterking at 12:21pm 15th December 2011 And actually this committee hearing is actually quite offensive. Calling people nerds and geeks. Their saying "I don't know the technology end, but...," So then, why are they even discussing it if they don't understand it!? how can you be pro or con something if you don't get it!? This is why our country is failing on so many levels... They don't get it, but they will make laws about it.