Grooveshark

Grooveshark is an online community that allows users to search for music using a search engine, hear and possibly also upload new music. Around 50 to 60 million songs from more than 400,000 listeners are retrieved per month. In April 2009, the average number of listeners increased by two to three percent per day. On January 18, 2012 presented a Grooveshark access from Germany.

Functions

One of the most striking features of Grooveshark is the so-called " Grooveshark Radio". It should find more songs on the basis of already -heard songs by the user and propose. Furthermore, can be customized with a simple rating scheme, the proposed title with a " happy " or " disappointing " smiley mark. Should the user be satisfied with the proposals, Grooveshark gives him the option to save the playlist, and later recall. However, offers " Grooveshark Radio" a static playlist that will play automatically. The songs in this playlist are members of a particular genre, which is freely selectable. Currently 26 classifications are available.

History

Grooveshark is a service of Escape Media Group Inc (EMG ) based in Gainesville ( Florida). EMG was founded in March 2006 by three students of the University of Florida. Sam Tarantino, currently CEO of Grooveshark, had the idea to start this service when he walked by a record store and a sign saying " buy / sell / trade CDs " ( in German: " buy / sell / swap CDs " ) read and this setting was transferred to digital music.

Grooveshark launched in early 2007 with a beta version and was originally a download portal for paid music. The music was purchased from their proprietary P2P networks. Grooveshark offered a unique payment method in which the person hochlud a song that is partly involved in the overall costs of the song.

In December 2007, the EMG was already employing 40 employees, most of them were students who lived near the University of Florida.

2008, EMG has set its fee-based download service and reorganized itself as an online jukebox, similar in functionality, such as the services Pandora and Last.fm.

In October 2009, Grooveshark got a new appearance: The users could, in the songs now and jump back.

Since 18 January 2012, the access to Grooveshark.com from Germany is locked because the operating cost on the webpage of Grooveshark.com in Germany were too high, according to the statement because of GEMA fees.

Legal situation

Grooveshark offers the uploaded by its users to stream music to conclude without proper license agreements with the authors or right holders. 2009 strained the music company EMI is why a lawsuit against the company but then quickly entered into a license agreement with Grooveshark from. According to German copyright law to Grooveshark is in a legal gray zone. In addition, Universal has filed suit against Grooveshark in order to obtain a closure.

On January 18, 2012 Grooveshark introduced its service in Germany with the reference to " disproportionate cost " field. Visitors to the site was recommended to send a polite message to GEMA, if they want to reduce the operating costs for providers like Grooveshark. Furthermore, can be found on the website an indication of the alternative, German -born music service simfy. The mobile website is no longer accessible from Germany since 21 January 2012. Meanwhile, there are several technical solutions to bypass this barrier. In a press release from GEMA, however, any contact between the collecting society and Grooveshark is hitherto denied and the claim that a foreclosure of users from Germany would have happened for reasons of cost, shown to be incorrect.