14 DAY TRIAL // Grooveshark has operated under a somewhat sketchy legal basis from day one. Yet it managed to stay alive for years now, streaming millions of songs, for free, to millions of users around the world.
But that may come to an end if the latest accusations coming from Universal Music Group, which has sued the music streaming site, turn out to be accurate.
Universal is now claiming that Grooveshark employees regularly upload unlicensed (pirated) songs to the site and that this is true from the CEO downwards.
In total, Universal claims that Grooveshark employees have uploaded more than 100,000 tracks to the site over the years.
Clearly, if this is true, Grooveshark is in hot water as any defense it had under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's "safe harbour" provisions is gone.
If indeed employees have been uploading copyrighted songs without rightholders' permission, US courts will go down hard on the site, not only shutting it down, but putting many employees, or at least the higher-ups at the company at risk of jail time.
Universal sued Grooveshark last year over copyright infringement. It was not the first time the site had been sued by a major label. Earlier, EMI came after the site until the two sides settled and Grooveshark licensed EMI content.
But, to date, that's the only major label deal the site has struck. When Universal sued, the presumption was that it would reach a settlement as well.
But it seems that the label wants to take Grooveshark down and it may have the means to do it. As part of the lawsuit, it got access to Grooveshark's uploads information database.
It's in that data that Universal discovered that Grooveshark employees were among the uploaders. Starting with CEO Samuel Tarantino, which Universal says has uploaded 1,791 copyrighted songs, a lot of employees have done the same.
This new evidence led Universal to file another lawsuit and to ask the court for an injunction for the site. If it wins this injunction, Grooveshark will have to shut down at least until the copyright lawsuit is over, which may take years.