Free music streaming service Grooveshark has closed down after almost ten years.
The longstanding service had been under pressure from music labels for some time for offering up their music free and unlicensed. Now the service has been taken down, and all that remains on the Grooveshark website is an apology letter from the team.
The team admits that “despite best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes,” and that it “failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service.”
“That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation.”
The note reveals that as part of the settlement with the major record companies, Grooveshark has agreed to cease operations immediately, wipe all of its data from its servers, and hand over all of its technology and IP.
It goes on to explain why it started the Grooveshark service in the first place – because there was no music streaming business ten years ago.
“There are now hundreds of fan friendly, affordable services available for you to choose from,” it admits, “including Spotify, Deezer, Google Play, Beats Music, Rhapsody and Rdio, among many others.”
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In truth, the gig was up towards the end of last year when a US judge found the service guilty of wilful copyright infringement. Another judgement in recent weeks proved final, ruling that Grooveshark could be made to pay $150,000 in damages per song.
As The Verge points out, With some 5,000 songs involved in the case, Grooveshark was looking at a charge of hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
