The service failed to secure licenses from right holders

May 1, 2015 02:09 GMT  ·  By

Bad news for Grooveshark subscribers (including myself), as the company owning the music streaming service has just announced it has failed to secure licenses from right holders “for the vast amount of music” available for listening.

Launched about 10 years ago, the Grooveshark music service is shutting down effective today. Premium subscribers will have their automatic payments canceled since Escape Media Group will not be offering the service beginning May 1.

In a letter to its fans, Grooveshark apologizes for not being able to secure the needed licenses from right holders, despite the best of intentions. Moreover, the company admits it made serious mistakes, which led to today's announcement.

Apparently, as part of the settlement with major record companies, Grooveshark owners have agreed to cease operations immediately and wipe clean all the data on their servers.

Grooveshark subscribers should look for other music services

In addition, the ownership of the website, along with the mobile apps and intellectual property, as well as patents and copyrights, have been handed over to the record companies.

“At that time of our launch, few music services provided the experience we wanted to offer and think you deserve. Fortunately, that’s no longer the case. There are now hundreds of fan friendly, affordable services available for you to choose from, including Spotify, Deezer, Google Play, Beats Music, Rhapsody and Rdio, among many others,” says Grooveshark in the letter sent to subscribers.

No additional details on the settlement with the major record companies have been offered, but the company's decision to close down the music service doesn't come as a surprise.

About a week ago, a judge imposed the maximum fine of $150,000 (€133,472)for songs that infringed copyright, so given the fact that around 5,000 were under scrutiny by record companies, that would have translated into many hundreds of millions in damages that would have had to be paid by Grooveshark.

Grooveshark Letter To Fans