http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/perm...9whistleblower

Grooveshark's legal problems just went to 11, and you can thank King Crimson for cranking the volume. The 'long story short' is that Universal Music Group now has fresh accusations and evidence in its long-running 'legal jihad' against Grooveshark, thanks to a fiasco started by the Crimson camp. And the world's largest label is now presenting this new evidence to federal court judges.

Here's the longer version: This all started last month, when Crimson shared a series of frustrating emails involving Grooveshark, and a totally hopeless attempt to remove their content from the site. Digital Music News subsequently published those emails, and an anonymous comment to that story - allegedly from a Grooveshark employee - has been included in the UMG filing.

If you want to 'block' your music from Grooveshark, you can't. You can only send take down notice

The comment claims that Grooveshark employees are instructed to actively upload unauthorized music to the Grooveshark site, often against the wishes of the copyright owners and under the guise that random users are to blame. That behavior constitutes a clear violation of DMCA copyright statutes.






At least with Youtube, they block music if requested by the right holders. Not so with Grooveshark. In order to take down your music, you have to email. Which mean it will be back up a few hours later. The unintended consequence of the DMCA legislation.


Grooveshark makes money from advertisement and subscription revenue. However, it doesn't pay a dime to Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music artists + a lot of indie as well.

http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/101311cc

King Crimson Can't Get Their Music Off of Grooveshark. So They cc'd Digital Music News...
Thursday, October 13, 2011

by paul
The following are excerpts from a lengthy and angry email exchange between King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, his team, and Grooveshark. It dates back at least two months, and reveals a fruitless attempt to clear Grooveshark of Fripp's materials. We were cc'd on the thread today.

Date: September 13th, 2011
From: Declan Colgan
To: Grooveshark SVP Paul Geller
This is not simply about takedowns.

Most of the material taken down over the weekend has already re-appeared.
This is about that fact that Grooveshark has, repeatedly, allowed this material to be made available illegally, despite numerous notices that this represents an infringement of the copyrights involved: from Grayzone (one behalf of the copyright owner), from myself (as the licensee of the material) & communications that have been personally addressed directly to the company by the copyright holder Robert Fripp.

Irrespective of whether or not a third party label did warrant to Grooveshark that they had such rights (& Virgin/EMI - mentioned by Mr. Ford in writing to a fan who asked the question recently as having granted such licenses to Grooveshark assure us that they did not grant such rights), they are not the copyright owners & would have had no rights to do so.

I can ask Mark Furman, a senior lawyer at the company & copied on this note to confirm this yet again if it will help?

You ask for time & patience from us on the basis that "takedowns have been honored", yet your site continues to offer King Crimson music illegally to the public.

That deserves public comment.
If you were taking our position "seriously", you would disable the facilities to search & upload King Crimson music as you do for other artists.
- Declan

Don't mess with the Crimson Kings! If they want their music off YOU TAKE IT OFF! And SMH at them not rewarding excellence and taking all the revenue. They need to get shut down.

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/indus...05550232.story

Internal Emails in Grooveshark/Universal Case Show Grooveshark Opted to Post First, Ask for Permission Later''

It's an old story in digital music: should a startup seek permission to use copyright material or forgiveness for using copyright material without a license?

In a April 27, 2010 email to Sina Simantob, a Escape Media Group director, Andrew B. Lipsher, then a partner at private equity firm Greycroft Partners, explained that he understands "the ask forgiveness and not permission strategy. It is a hard one to swallow as an investor knowing what I know, but the labels have been so horrible and naïve that I think it is the only one that makes sense." The email indicates Lipsher, currently SVP of CorporateDevelopment at Clear Channel Communications, passed on investing in Escape.

A December 1, 2009 email from Simantob to unknown recipients explains that Grooveshark has achieved "all this growth without paying a dime to any of the labels." One month later, Simantob wrote an email to Universal's David Ring that acknowledged "Grooveshark owes UMG for the use of its valuable content" and planned to settle the case "hopefully sooner than later."

While Grooveshark generates revenue from advertising and subscription fees for a premium service, it appears the service also hopes to mine its consumer data for sale to rights owners. In the December 1, 2009 email, Simantob explained the service would use the labels' songs until it reached 100 million unique users. By the point, he wrote, Grooveshark's data on listener behavior would be so valuable to labels it could charge more for the data than what it pays labels in royalties.

Basically, if you listen to music on Youtube, Spotify, Pandora, VEVO etc... your favorite artists get paid. They all licensed music.

If you listen to music on Grooveshark, only Grooveshark get paid. Your favorites got nothing.