Music Business

Read The Email From Grooveshark’s Co-Founder That Lost A Lawsuit and Doomed His Company

sendDespite a defiant response yesterday, Grooveshark appears to be a company on the brink of failure. New York Judge Thomas Griesa all but negated the company's Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbor defense that has protected YouTube and others, ruling on Monday that Grooveshark and parent company Escape Media were liable for copyright infringement by its employees who were encouraged to upload 5,977 tracks without proper licencing.

The court's decision came after an email from Grooveshark CTO and co-founder Joshua Greenberg was revealed.

Safe harbor protects digital companies who take down infringing material after notification from the rightsholder. But what if those infringing were staffers of the company itself?

As early as 2007, Greenberg demanded that his employees upload tracks to see the service.  One email read:

Download as many MP3’s as possible, and add them to the folders you’re sharing on Grooveshark. Some of us are setting up special "seed points" to house tens or even hundreds of thousands of files, but we can’t do this alone… There is no reason why ANYONE in the company should not be able to do this, and I expect everyone to have this done by Monday… IF I DON’T HAVE AN EMAIL FROM YOU IN MY INBOX BY MONDAY, YOU’RE ON MY OFFICIAL SHIT LIST.

 

“Each time Escape streamed one of plaintiffs’ songs recordings, it directly infringed upon plaintiffs’ exclusive performance rights,” Judge Griesa wrote in his 57-page decision.  

Thus far, the judge has not awarded damages or ordered Grooveshark to shut down; and snce 2008, Grooveshark has cut some deals with labels and publishers. But other important deals are not in place; and assuming the judge follows precedent when awarding damages, it seems doubtful that Grooveshark could pay damages and survive as a company.

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3 Comments

  1. The real tragedy is that this has gone on for so long. Time to give the copyright owners the right to choose what happens to their work by implementing a “Stay-down” provision that will actually have an impact on Piracy.
    For those artists who support piracy, they can choose to let their copyrighted work remain on whatever sites they choose.
    End piracy? Never happen. But we can streamline the process with accountable directives and identify infringing sites in weeks not years.
    Time to end this painful, expensive charade that has cost many artists their careers.

  2. I’d like to know what artists have lost careers to piracy. Artists make most if their money touring and thru merchandise, very little from royalties. Anything that gets their music exposed to the widest possible audience will enhance their tour success. The only ones who lose to piracy are the labels, and they are victims of their own greed.

  3. Please don’t go away and enjoy your website it gets me going during the day and I work so hard making playlist , is this some kind nightmare,why did this happen?Please don’t erase my playlist jut send all my songs at my email,,

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