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Grooveshark sued by EMI

22 June 2009 3:00 by Andre "DVDBack23" Yoskowitz | 3 comments

EMI has sued the free streaming music service Grooveshark today, accusing the site of facilitating copyright infringement.

Says Grooveshark:

For the past year, Grooveshark has been in talks with EMI Records and other copyright holders to negotiate licensing agreements for the use of their content. We are pleased to announce that over the past few months Grooveshark successfully concluded mutually beneﬁcial agreements with many artists, labels, and publishers that we hope to be a template for other such agreements with additional copyright holders.

Recently, EMI Records chose to abandon the template we�ve built with the help of other major copyright holders and opted for their traditional intimidation tactic of ﬁling a lawsuit as a negotiating tool. We ﬁnd the use of this negotiating strategy counterproductive, as Grooveshark has been willing to conclude an agreement with EMI Records that is economically sustainable for both EMI Records and a start-up company the size of Grooveshark.

Grooveshark is run by a group of young and passionate musicians. We love music, we make music, and we believe that the use of all music should be paid for. We adopted this core philosophy at our inception and to date have concluded agreements with hundreds of record labels, major US performance rights organizations, and thousands of independent artists who support Grooveshark�s business model. (See: Grooveshark Artists)

As musicians, we support the rights of copyright holders and strive to sign sustainable agreements with all content owners, ensuring that all artists get paid� or we agree to remove content from our system in accordance with our DMCA Takedown Policy. We hope that EMI Records eventually follows the lead of the many forward-thinking labels we are already working with, who would rather get their artists exposure and a fair share of our revenue than block content access and force customers to illegal networks.

We understand that the economy of the digital music business is in a state of ﬂux, and we hope to help ease this transition by providing the required new tools and services that lead to the next generation of the music industry. We respect the ownership rights of the major labels and publishers, and our core mission has always been to compete with piracy by offering a service that is genuinely better than what illegal networks offer, while also ensuring fair payment to copyright holders. Our next important step on our road to success is to conclude a mutually beneﬁcial agreement with EMI Records that is sustainable for both EMI and Grooveshark.

Permalink to this article | Topic: Lawsuits & Legislation

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pphoenix (Inactive) 22 June 2009 6:23
*Quote:* For the past year, Grooveshark has been in talks with EMI Records and other copyright holders to negotiate licensing agreements for the use of their content. what a joke if payola wasn't bad enough to destroy indie competition you have this: Is it justified to steal from thieves? READ ON. RIAA Claims Ownership of All Artist Royalties For Internet Radio http://slashdot.org/articles/07/04/29/0335224.shtml "With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations, wouldn't a good solution be for streaming internet stations to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels' music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA's affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. 'SoundExchange (the RIAA) considers any digital performance of a song as falling under their compulsory license. If any artist records a song, SoundExchange has the right to collect royalties for its performance on Internet radio. Artists can offer to download their music for free, but they cannot offer their songs to Internet radio for free ... So how it works is that SoundExchange collects money through compulsory royalties from Webcasters and holds onto the money. If a label or artist wants their share of the money, they must become a member of SoundExchange and pay a fee to collect their royalties.'" http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/24/141326/870 [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 22 June 2009 6:25
ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 22 June 2009 11:40
If this groups can not deal strictly with their members copy right then they need to be disbanded..... [ + quote]
djgizmo (Junior Member) 22 June 2009 15:19
*Quote:* With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations, wouldn't a good solution be for streaming internet stations to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels' music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA's affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. SoundExchange isn't the RIAA and vice versa. They do have a working relationship, however they are not the same entity, even if you climb up the ladder. However, internet stations CAN stop paying licensing fees if they ONLY play artists that are: Not Signed, not signed with a RIAA Label (there are a TON of indie labels signed with the RIAA), or signed to independent labels that due not work with soundexchange or any other P.R.O (Performance Rights Organization) 99% of what a station can legally play w/o paying royalties are related to EDM. [ + quote]