http://www.billboard.com/biz/article...appeal-against
The lawsuit, filed by Universal Music Group, alleged that Grooveshark had violated copyrights laws by hosting unlicensed music from Universal’s catalog that was recorded prior to 1972.
The date is significant because recordings from 1972 and onward explicitly fell under the DMCA, which granted online service providers such as Grooveshark a “safe harbor” against copyright litigation, provided that they meet certain obligations, including a process for taking down infringing content uploaded by users. Universal argued that, when it came to copyrighted songs recorded before 1972, Grooveshark enjoyed no such safe harbor and was liable. The latest court ruling agreed with Universal.
The decision has the potential to send a number of social networks that rely on user uploaded content scrambling to scour their systems for copyrighted material recorded prior to 1972 in order to minimize their potential liability, including YouTube, SoundCloud and others.
"As a practical matter, this means that service providers who permit users to upload pre-1972 sound recordings are liable for copyright infringement," said Lawrence Iser, a copyright attorney with Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert. "It places the burden on the service provider to police its servers and remove pre-1972 sound recordings. Copyright owners no longer have the obligation to notify the service provider. Instead, the copyright owner can simply file suit."