Grooveshark is a music streaming service used by a lot of people, I was a subscriber for awhile, and like all streaming services made sure that they had a mobile presence on what is now the most popular mobile platform – Android.

That was until Google pulled the Grooveshark app from the Android marketplace on April 1, 2011 for supposed violation of the marketplace Terms of Service.

Today Grooveshark has shot back via a public statement posted at Digital Music News where they laid down the gauntlet to the music industry and the attempt to paint Grooveshark as a company offering illegal services to its subscribers.

Yet some are confused as to how we are legal.  First, there is a distinction between legal and licensed.  Laws come from Congress.  Licenses come from businesses.  Grooveshark is completely legal because we comply with the laws passed by Congress, but we are not licensed by every label (yet).  We are a technology company, and we operate within the boundaries of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA).  Some would have you believe that those of us who use the DMCA to innovate are inherently infringers and that claiming Safe Harbor under the DMCA is as good as admitting guilt.  Not so.

In addition to making the distinction regarding laws and licenses Grooveshark points out that they have, and continue to comply with every single take down notice as filed under DCMA. As well Grooveshark makes every effort to expand its base of licensed content.

With that said, Grooveshark doesn’t just rely on the protection of the law.  We have worldwide licensing from over a thousand labels — large and small.  We pay the three major U.S. performing rights organizations, as well as some international bodies, and are actively pursuing agreements with those that we don’t.  We recently signed Merlin, which included the Merge catalog.  This was a particularly happy day for us because it brought The Arcade Fire into the family.  We pay for our streams, and we actively negotiate with virtually every single content owner. We’ve taken down over 1.76 million files and suspended upload privileges to 22,274 users.  These are not the characteristics of a company “dedicated to copyright infringement”.  As we work with artists and labels to make more content available to our users, Grooveshark becomes more competitive as an alternative to piracy.

So the question still remains – what wrong has Grooveshark done that breaks Google’s ambiguous Terms of Service?

quote image via Digital Music News

Grooveshark: “We follow the law” is a post from: The Inquisitr

Grooveshark is often attacked for its “too good to be true” business model- after years of watching the RIAA win astronomical judgments against file-sharers and the whole Napster brouhaha, users are wary of getting their asses hauled into court for streaming a Katy Perry song.

Indeed, many people at this point are jaded about even listening to a track they haven’t paid someone, somewhere 99 cents for, and reps from the service have been attacked on social media sites for that very reason. Users have become extremely efficient at handing over rights and freedoms for fear of possibly violating those of a corporation just in principal, which is kind of sad. Grooveshark has struck back at this attitude in an open letter, asserting that their service operates legally and under DMCA protection.

In an open letter on Digital Music News, Paul Gellar of Grooveshark strikes back at the idea that if a service is convenient to music consumers and intuitive to use, it somehow must be illegal:

Yet some are confused as to how we are legal.  First, there is a distinction between legal and licensed.  Laws come from Congress.  Licenses come from businesses.  Grooveshark is completely legal because we comply with the laws passed by Congress, but we are not licensed by every label (yet).  We are a technology company, and we operate within the boundaries of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA).  Some would have you believe that those of us who use the DMCA to innovate are inherently infringers and that claiming Safe Harbor under the DMCA is as good as admitting guilt.  Not so.

(One space after periods, Gellar, one space. You’re messing up my formatting.) Gellar points to action the service has taken to prevent infringement and protect copyright as an argument against the service breaking laws willy-nilly:

We pay for our streams, and we actively negotiate with virtually every single content owner. We’ve taken down over 1.76 million files and suspended upload privileges to 22,274 users.  These are not the characteristics of a company “dedicated to copyright infringement”.  As we work with artists and labels to make more content available to our users, Grooveshark becomes more competitive as an alternative to piracy.

Gellar continues:

In light of the recent misleading press concerning Grooveshark’s application, it is important to make clear that we will defend our service, and the letter and the spirit of the law, in court and in Congress. We will defend our name and our ideals for the sake of our users who expect modern delivery systems and comprehensive access across devices, for the sake of artists and content owners who fear another decade of decline, and for other innovators who continue to bring new ideas to market through the expression of creativity in the form of technology.

The letter concludes with a plea for Google and Apple to restore the Grooveshark app to their respective app stores. It will be interesting to see how Grooveshark’s status shakes out, but sadly, it doesn’t seem the app’s team will be able to stand up to the massive corporate interests seeking to suppress the service. Do you think Grooveshark has a shot, or are they already fighting a losing battle?

Grooveshark challenges Android market removal, says “nothing illegal” about the service is a post from: The Inquisitr

European music streaming service Spotify upset users and fans today with an announcement that the number of hours of listening for free users would be halved from 20 to 10.

One of the first comments on Spotify’s post announcing the changes kind of sums up reaction to the obviously unpopular announcement:

Ah well, it was nice while it lasted. That’s me over to Grooveshark/YouTube/piracy. Which is a shame, because Spotify had by far the best features and interface. I’ll miss the sharing and the ease of making playlists, I had things nicely organised. Thanks for destroying a community of music lovers. Goodbye.

No specific reason was offered by Spotify for the unpopular decision- it could be to drive more users to the paid service, or maybe due to music label pressure. Spotify bullet-pointed the changes that would affect users:

• New Spotify users will be able to enjoy our unrivalled free service as it is today for the first 6 months.
• As of May 1st, any user who signed up to the free service on or before November 1st 2010 will be able to play each track for free up to a total of 5 times. Users who signed up after the beginning of November will see these changes applied 6 months after the time they set up their Spotify account.
• Additionally, total listening time for free users will be limited to 10 hours per month after the first 6 months. That’s equivalent to around 200 tracks or 20 albums.

If you’re a Spotify Free or Open user, do you plan to continue using the service with all the restrictions? Is it worth the hassle of porting all your music preferences over manually for ten measly hours of listening a month?

Spotify halves monthly free listening time is a post from: The Inquisitr

This really won’t matter to anyone outside of the U.S. and Canada but new streaming music entrant Rdio finally went public as you may have been able to tell from the flurry of posts about it late last night.

Now I will say that having signed up for their 4 Day trial period the site is pretty slick and everything works really well. The only problem is that in the Canadian version of the site the music selection reminds me of the old Ktel and Pickwick record bargain bins.

Actually let me correct that that – it’s worse. At least the majority of the time you could fine some real keepers in the Ktel bins not so with Rdio. I realize that my musical tastes might not be all that main stream but I figure that a little Paul Oakenfold, Enigma, or even a little Lady Gaga (go hate somewhere else) would be somewhere in the line-up.

Instead this is what we are being served up as new releases

Or how about this awesome selection

Seriously?

Originally I had figured that the $5.00 a month for a streaming music service would be a pretty good deal but after looking through their current selection I think I’ll be saving my money for something else.

As I said this could be a totally different experience than what U.S. subscribers are getting for their money; which wouldn’t surprise me at all.

Rdio hits the US and Canada – slick but bargain bin time is a post from: The Inquisitr

Music service Seeqpod has filed for bankruptcy protection in the face of music industry lawsuits that are seeking billions in damages.

Seeqpod acts as a search engine for music, and allows users to play and share music it has indexed. The site doesn’t host the music, but doesn’t differentiate between legal and illegal content, which is where the music industry has its issues. Warner, EMI and Capitol Records have targeted Seeqpod directly, its owners, and services that use the Seeqpod API in its lawsuits.

Seeqpod contends that it is no different than Google, and offers the DMCA in its defense. A small startup with $7 million in funding vs the multi-billion dollar music industry is a David and Golliath battle that would be hard to win though.

Seeqpod is still operating, and the company is offering its platform under license at $5,000 a pop in an effort to raise more money.

Wired has more.

Seeqpod files for bankruptcy is a post from: The Inquisitr

Popular CBS owned online music service Last.fm has announced that it will cease providing free access to users outside of the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. Instead, users outside these countries will have to pay €3.00 (US$4.05) per month to have access to music on the site, as we reported earlier.

Last.fm did not specify the reason behind the decision, and instead rattled on about what a wonderful job they do. Speculation (and reason) suggests that the decision may be related to royalty payments and/ or the need to increase revenue at a time that the online advertising market is being hit hard by the great recession.

The fail in the decision is demand: why would users pay Last.fm to listen to music when they can obtain it online via a variety of other sites, both legal and illegal, for free. Add to this that Last.fm doesn’t have access to Warner Bros music, so even if you did pay, you don’t get access to 15% of the market and some of the biggest names in music (a full list here.) Alternatives services like Grooveshark will be rubbing their hands with glee.

Fail: Last.fm to charge for access outside US, UK and Germany is a post from: The Inquisitr

Online music on demand service Grooveshark has entered the music widgets space, with customizable embedded music widgets.

The new widgets allow anyone to take songs on Groooveshark and create an embeddable widget for their blog. The widgets don’t have streaming limits like similar widgets from Rhapsody, and the widgets are ad free.

Customization is where Grooveshark’s widgets shine. Users can include one song, or complete playlists in a widget. More importantly though is the ability to color and size the widget to suit. Not only is the customization interface on of the nicest and best thought out interfaces I’ve seen in a long time, you can tweak you widget to suit you site. Some other sites offer limited customization, or none at all, where as Grooveshark is in a world of its own here.

Also announced today is the ability to users to upload their songs directly to Grooveshark without a download client. This allows Grooveshark users to have a “take in anywhere” style online music service.

We last wrote about Grooveshark when they launched a Pandora style service in August. Along with autoplay music, and music on demand, Grooveshark offers a huge depth of legal, quality controlled music, that delivers a service superior to other sites that don’t host music locally, or have question marks around their legality. If you’re thinking of embedding a song in the future, be sure to visit Grooveshark.

Grooveshark enters the music widgets space is a post from: The Inquisitr

The concept for such as feature isn’t new, and many will recognize it as being Pandora’s original model that was later picked up by Last.fm and others. However, Pandora (despite its brilliance) hasn’t been available outside of the United States now for over a year, so great contextual audio streaming has been thin on the ground for the rest of us.

I spoke with Grooveshark’s SB Spalding last week about the product and its legality. Grooveshark already has an adventurous model; users upload songs to the service then anyone can buy those songs from Grooveshark with a cut going back to the user who uploaded it, along with the record companies themselves. There’s a strong emphasis on quality, so unlike Seeqpod (a competitor to Grooveshark Lite) where it can be pot luck sometimes in terms of the quality of the music streamed, Grooveshark tracks a filtered based on quality, guaranteeing a decent track. Grooveshark has still to work out all the legalities with the new streaming service from what I can gather, but they have existing relationships with music companies and as Spalding told me, they spend far too much money on lawyers making sure they stay legal. This is not to say that a music company won’t turn around tomorrow and try to close the new service down, but they are trying their hardest to keep copyright holders happy while still (obviously) trying turning a profit by delivering great products.

The autoplay feature is still new, so it may not have the richest algorithm in terms of contextual matching, but in my Brubeck test is passed the grade with flying colors. Well worth a look.

Grooveshark Autoplay: Pandora for the rest of us is a post from: The Inquisitr