Universal Music Group Sues Grooveshark
Universal Music Group is suing streaming music site Grooveshark for mass copyright violations. Last year EMI also sued Grooveshark, but later dropped the filing and began working with the site.
In the filing against parent company Escape Media, the world's largest label group claims that Grooveshark "uses the lure of free access" to draw web traffic which leads to money from advertising. UMG says that the site stores "copyrighted sound recordings on its own servers … and then distribute(s) copies of those recordings to the users." Grooveshark allegedly also "boasted" about targeting "the very segment of users that are bringing the labels to their knees with illegal downloading".
All the recordings named in the suit are pre-1972 and include Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Cat Stevens, the Jackson Five and the Who.
Eh? Distributes copies of the recordings on the server to users? Are they stating it like that, because they know the judge won’t understand it anyway, or do they themselves really not understand the concept of streaming? :-\
Isn’t this what SoundExchange was (or should have been) created for?
I’m sure sound exchange should be collecting on performance royalties under the “experimental license”. Not sure if groovesharks model allows them to use content under that license alone however. They very well may have a legit complaint against the company. Hopefully, for them, they can strike a deal like they did with EMI and the artists themselves can benefit. Time will tell….