Grooveshark
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| URL | grooveshark.com |
|---|---|
| Commercial? | Previously; now freemium |
| Type of site | Music, Search, & Community |
| Registration | Optional |
| Available language(s) | 30 languages |
| Owner | Escape Media Group Inc. |
| Created by | Sam Tarantino, Josh Greenberg |
| Launched | 2007 |
| Alexa rank | 614 (January 2012[update])[1] |
| Current status | Active |
Grooveshark is an international online music search engine, music streaming service and music recommendation web software application, allowing users to search for, stream, and upload music that can be played immediately or added to a playlist. An optional paid subscription provides additional functionality and removes advertisements from the user interface.[2]
Grooveshark streams 150 to 160 million songs per month. In April 2009, its audience grew at a rate of 2–3% per day. On May 9, 2011, the Grooveshark team did a countdown to 35,000,000 registered users. It was live streamed on Ustream.tv.[3]
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[edit] Features
Grooveshark is a rich Internet application that was first written in ActionScript using the Adobe Flex framework that ran in Adobe Flash. In December 2010, Grooveshark introduced a redesign of the site that features an interface rewritten to use HTML5. The actual music player however, still uses Adobe Flash.[4] Grooveshark's design implements various sliding panels to categorize and display lists of information. A right-aligned black modal window also slides in to display more information for songs, playlists, and users. Grooveshark also lets users upload music to their online music library through a Java Web Start application. The upload program scans folders specified for MP3s, uploading and adding them to the user's online library on the service. The ID3 information of the uploaded song is linked to the user and the file is uploaded to Grooveshark which allows on-demand music playback. All content on the service is user-sourced.[5][6]
[edit] Catalog
Grooveshark’s catalog is the most extensive of any online music streaming service with users streaming over 1 billion sound files per month, over 15 million songs and 35 million users. Users can search and find music by song, artist, album, browsing friends’ recent activity, and even through other users’ playlists.
[edit] Playlists
Grooveshark allows users to create and edit an unlimited amount of Playlists. Registered users can save playlists to an account, subscribe to other users’ Playlists and easily share Playlists through e-mail, social media, StumbleUpon, Reddit or an embeddable widget.
[edit] Radio Stations
One feature of Grooveshark is its Radio Stations, much like Pandora’s site. Users can listen to Genre Radio Stations, stations that are based around a particular genre, or they can populate their own station by music that they add to their list of Current Songs. After a user has added songs and turned on the Radio Station feature, the site will start a continuous stream of similar music. The stations have a rating feature, where a user can select a “happy” face icon for a song that they like, or a “sad” face icon for songs that they don’t like.
[edit] Social Features
Grooveshark features a “Community” section, where users can view the activity of friends by “following” them through clicking a “heart” icon. Social media is featured heavily on Grooveshark, and users can easily connect their accounts for fast music sharing between sites, or quickly find friends on Grooveshark by connecting other social media accounts.
[edit] Subscription services
Standard Grooveshark accounts are free,[7] but Grooveshark offers two subscription services that give users increased features, no banner ads and playability on mobile devices.
- Grooveshark Plus: $6 USD/month or $60 USD/year[8]
- No banner ads on Grooveshark or any affiliated sites
- More customizable features, such as access to a wider variety of skins
- Access to the Grooveshark Desktop application
- Sneak peeks of latest developments on Grooveshark Preview[9]
- Grooveshark Anywhere: $9 USD/month or $90 USD/year[10]
- All of the features of Grooveshark Plus
- Unlimited access to mobile applications for smart phones
[edit] History
Grooveshark is a service of Escape Media Group Inc. (EMG), a Gainesville, FL company.[11] Grooveshark was founded in March 2006 by three University of Florida undergraduate students.[12] Sam Tarantino, a "down-on-his-luck economics major,” and now CEO of Grooveshark, was on his way to donate plasma when he passed a record store with a sign that said "buy/sell/trade CDs" and had the idea to apply that to digital music. [13]
For the first two years of its existence, Grooveshark functioned as a paid downloadable music service,[14] with its content sourced from a proprietary P2P network called “Sharkbyte.” Grooveshark offered a unique purchase model whereby upon purchase, the person who uploaded the transacted song was paid a portion of the total cost of the song. Grooveshark positioned itself as a legal competitor to other popular P2P networks like LimeWire.[15]
Drawing inspiration from sites like Youtube, Grooveshark’s founders sought to increase usability of the service in 2008 by allowing users to click and play songs instantly on the site rather than requiring an application download. On April 15, 2008, the new, instant-streaming web-based version of Grooveshark was released, propelling Grooveshark to viral success.[16]
As of 2009, Grooveshark had secured just under $1 million in seed funding.[17] Also in 2009, Grooveshark launched its artist platform called Grooveshark Artists[18], geared toward sharing and promoting artists’ music to listening-targeted fans.[19]
On Oct. 27, 2009, Grooveshark introduced a brand new user interface, which included features like the ability to skip forward and backward to any point in a song,[20] left-hand navigation, customizable site themes and drag-and-drop playlist editing.[21]
On Aug. 25, 2010, Grooveshark was noted by Time Magazine as one of the 50 Best Websites of 2010.[22]
On Dec. 2, 2010, Grooveshark introduced a redesign of the site that features an interface rewritten to use HTML5. However, the actual music player still uses Adobe Flash.[23]
On October 10, 2011, Grooveshark released its most recent version of the site to its Premium Subscription users and beta testers, with plans to release the new design to all users in November 2011. The new design features subtle facelift to the aesthetics, improvements to navigation, improvements to the queue and improvements to the social aspects of Grooveshark.[24]
On November 21, 2011, Grooveshark was honored as a Mashable Awards 2011 Finalist in the Best Music Service or App category. [25]
On December 19, 2011, Grooveshark co-founders Sam Tarantino and Josh Greenberg were featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 in Music, amongst artists like Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Adele. [26]
As of January 2012, Grooveshark employs over 130 people, with nearly 100 working in its headquarters in Gainesville, FL, and additional employees in its New York, NY office.
[edit] Licensing and criticism
On April 18, 2011, Grooveshark’s Sr. VP of External Affairs Paul Geller released an open letter to the music industry regarding Grooveshark’s legality in an effort to explain how Grooveshark is legal, even though it is not completely licensed.
There is a distinction between legal and licensed. Laws come from Congress. Licenses come from businesses. Grooveshark is completely legal because we comply with the laws passed by Congress, but we are not licensed by every label (yet). We are a technology company, and we operate within the boundaries of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). Some would have you believe that those of us who use the DMCA to innovate are inherently infringers and that claiming Safe Harbor under the DMCA is as good as admitting guilt. Not so.[27]—Paul Geller
For all the content on Grooveshark that is user-generated, the site relies on users to follow guidelines when uploading. Grooveshark’s Terms of Service outlines that no user content shall be “illegal, obscene, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, infringing of intellectual property rights, or otherwise injurious to third parties or objectionable.” [28] It is Grooveshark’s policy to honor all takedown requests that comply with the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and other applicable intellectual property laws.[29] In December 2010, Grooveshark launched a revamped copyright management page[30] which included a new web-based DMCA takedown tool[31] to help content owners manage material on Grooveshark and communicate when content needs to be removed.[32] Grooveshark CEO Sam Tarantino maintains the company strictly follows the Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown procedures, usually removing content expeditiously.[33]
Grooveshark has licensing deals with both independent and major record labels, publishers and PROs, including EMI[34] and Sun Records.[35][36]. On January 5, 2012, EMI sued Grooveshark over non payment of royalties since signing the license agreement for streaming music.[37]
Universal Music Group filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Grooveshark on January 6, 2010, alleging that Grooveshark maintained on its servers illegal copies of Universal's pre-1972 catalog.[38] UMG filed a second lawsuit against Grooveshark in November 2011 citing internal documents revealing that Grooveshark employees uploaded thousands of illegal copies of UMG-owned recordings.[39] Grooveshark responded by saying that this was a "gross mischaracterisation of information that Grooveshark itself provided to Universal."[40] A complaint from Universal Media Group to Apple is believed to be the reason behind Apple pulling the iPhone Grooveshark app from its store after only a few days on August 16, 2010.[41]
In March 2010, Pink Floyd sued EMI, claiming that it has no right to sell their songs except as part of full albums[42] because it reduced the albums' artistic integrity.[43] Pink Floyd won against EMI, preventing the band's long-time record label from selling individual songs online,[44][45] which prompted the band's removal from Grooveshark.
On April 1, 2011, the Grooveshark app was pulled, without their consent, from the Android Market.[46]
As of January 2012, Grooveshark was being sued by "all major music labels". [47]
[edit] See also
- List of social networking websites
- List of Internet stations
- List of online music databases
- Groupware
- Streaming media
- Peer-to-peer (P2P)
[edit] References
- ^ "grooveshark.com - Traffic Details from Alexa". Alexa Internet, Inc. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/grooveshark.com. Retrieved 2011-11-17.
- ^ "On-Demand Digital Music Service Grooveshark Selects Juniper Networks EX Series Switching Platforms to Build Scalable Cloud-Based Infrastructure and Improve User Experience", "Yahoo! Finance", 14 June 2010. Retrieved on 08-11-10.
- ^ "Musicians Find Fans At Grooveshark Artists". http://blogcritics.org/archives/2009/04/15/094726.php. Retrieved 2009-04-23.
- ^ "Grooveshark Interface Receives an HTML5 Boost!". http://www.techdrivein.com/2010/12/grooveshark-interface-receives-html5.html. Retrieved 2010-12-17.
- ^ "Widgets and Music Uploads". http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10070510-2.html. Retrieved 2009-04-23.
- ^ "Grooveshark Now Does Widgets, Music Uploads". http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10070510-2.html. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Is Grooveshark Free?". http://help.grooveshark.com/customer/portal/articles/2137-is-grooveshark-free-. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "What is Grooveshark Plus?". http://help.grooveshark.com/customer/portal/articles/9064-what-is-grooveshark-plus-. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Grooveshark Preview Site". http://preview.grooveshark.com/. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "What is Grooveshark Anywhere?". http://help.grooveshark.com/customer/portal/articles/1993-what-is-grooveshark-anywhere-. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Grooveshark: About". http://www.grooveshark.com/about. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Interview with Grooveshark CTO Josh Greenberg". http://www.startupsopensourced.com/groovesharks-interview/. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Grooveshark Brings Legal Music Streaming to Gators and the World". http://news.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/inside_uf_1-15-08-low.pdf. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "CNET Editor’s Review: Grooveshark". http://download.cnet.com/Grooveshark/3000-2141_4-10815043.html. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Grooveshark Offers P2P Music Downloads But is it Legal". http://venturebeat.com/2007/12/05/grooveshark-offers-p2p-music-downloads-but-is-it-legal/. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Interview with Grooveshark CTO Josh Greenberg". http://www.startupsopensourced.com/groovesharks-interview/. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "VentureBeat Profile: Grooveshark". http://venturebeatprofiles.com//company/profile/grooveshark.
- ^ "Grooveshark Artists". http://artists.grooveshark.com. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Musicians Find Fans at Grooveshark Artists". http://blogcritics.org/music/article/musicians-find-fans-at-grooveshark-artists/. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Streaming Music Site Grooveshark Previews New Look, Features to VIPs". http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2009/08/25/streaming-music-site-grooveshark-previews-new-look-features-to/. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Grooveshark 2.0 Keeps Getting Better". http://www.russellheimlich.com/blog/grooveshark-2-0-keeps-getting-better/. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "50 Best Websites 2010: Grooveshark". Time. 2010-08-25. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2012721_2012728_2012745,00.html. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Grooveshark Interface Receives an HTML5 Boost". http://www.techdrivein.com/2010/12/grooveshark-interface-receives-html5.html. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Sneak Peak at the New Grooveshark Redesign". http://blog.grooveshark.com/post/11287127783/sneak-peek-at-the-new-grooveshark-redesign. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Mashable Awards 2011 Finalists". http://mashable.com/2011/11/21/2011-mashable-awards-finalists. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
- ^ "Forbes 30 Under 30 in Music". http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2011/30-under30-12/30-under-30-12_music.html. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
- ^ "Get Ready: Grooveshark Promises a Fight to the Finish". http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/041811grooveshark. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- ^ "Grooveshark Terms of Service". http://www.grooveshark.com/terms. Retrieved 2011-10-12.
- ^ "Grooveshark DMCA Takedown Policy". http://www.grooveshark.com/dmca. Retrieved 2011-10-12.
- ^ "Grooveshark DMCA Takedown Policy". http://www.grooveshark.com/dmca. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Grooveshark DMCA Complaint Form". http://www.grooveshark.com/dmca_form. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Blog: Grooveshark’s New DMCA Page and Policy". http://blog.grooveshark.com/post/2475990175/groovesharks-new-dmca-page-and-policy. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Grooveshark CEO Rails Against UMG-Forced App Takedown". http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/news/e3i724a018466b8941181f372784614637f. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
- ^ Van Buskirk, Eliot (2009-10-13). "EMI Drops Suit Against Grooveshark, Licenses It Instead". Wired. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/emi-drops-suit-against-grooveshark-music-service-licenses-it-instead/. Retrieved 2011-11-01.
- ^ "Grooveshark Signs Licensing Deal With Sun Records". http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/grooveshark-signs-licensing-deal-with-sun-records-130717218.html. Retrieved 2011-11-01.
- ^ "Grooveshark Labels List". http://www.grooveshark.com/labelslist. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Digital music service Grooveshark sued by EMI". Reuters. 2012-01-06. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/06/us-grooveshark-emi-lawsuit-idUSTRE80501S20120106. Retrieved 2012-01-05.Jonathan Stempel, Reuters
- ^ "UMG v. Grooveshark". http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/uploads/fb/32/fb32701d5d705be04823ba01de133bd7/UMGvGrooveshark.pdf. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
- ^ Lawsuit claims Grooveshark workers posted 100,000 pirated songs. Greg Sandoval, CNET, November 21, 2011
- ^ Grooveshark responds to Universal lawsuit CMU, 23 November 2011
- ^ Van Buskirk, Eliot (2010-08-17). "Apple Bows to Label Pressure, Yanks Grooveshark From App Store". Wired. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/08/apple-bows-to-label-pressure-yanks-grooveshark-from-app-store/. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
- ^ Michaels, Sean (2010-03-10). "Pink Floyd sue EMI over download royalties". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/mar/10/pink-floyd-sue-emi. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
- ^ "Pink Floyd wins EMI court case". http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4e63b88c-2d3c-11df-9c5b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1aUnN2NSu. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
- ^ Rooney, Ben (2010-03-11). ""Pink Floyd wins lawsuit with EMI over downloads". CNN. http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/11/technology/Pink_Floyd_EMI/. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
- ^ "Pink Floyd wins UK court battle with EMI label". Reuters. 2010-03-11. http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/03/11/us-floyd-court-idUSTRE62A25L20100311. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
- ^ "Google Removes Grooveshark App from the Android Market". http://mashable.com/2011/04/06/grooveshark-android-app-removed/. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ^ "Grooveshark sued by all major labels". http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57353515-93/grooveshark-now-feels-lawsuit-wrath-of-all-major-music-labels/. Retrieved 2012-01-06.
