As I’m listening to Jango and its great, free streaming of searchable music from any era, I wonder if it’s the next one to go.
Grooveshark, my favorite music streamer for many months, is no more. 🙁
I really liked its user interface, but it was the vast music collection that surpassed any other free music streaming web site.
The catch: Grooveshark apparently had no agreements with music companies, and no license to do so; while it proclaimed the music was added by its members from tracks they owned, its employees apparently did most of the illegal uploading.
Grooveshark got itself entangled into a six year legal battle, all while seeking a method to monetize the service.
Last week, the courts told the jury that Escape Media, the holding company of Grooveshark, could be held liable for up to $736 million in damages, after they lost the case on copyright violations.
The settlement was duly accepted by Grooveshark, and they get a clean slate by deleting everything on their servers and closing down the service.
Grooveshark now pitches the services of paid music streamers Spotify, Deezer, Google Play and others.
Ugh. 🙁
The future of the domain name Grooveshark.com itself is unknown, but I would not be surprised if it were to be sold via auction or private offering due to the amount of traffic it commanded.
In 2003, Microsoft let the domain of MongoMusic drop, three years after they acquired the streaming music company for $65 million dollars.
