After nearly a decade of streaming music, Grooveshark has closed. The streaming site’s webpage now displays a statement from the company saying how it made some big errors relating to copyright laws.
“We started out nearly ten years ago with the goal od helping fans share and discover music,” the statement reads.
“But despite best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service.
“That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation.”
According to Exclaim, the company had faced a number of lawsuits from label companies for offering unlicensed material.
In the statement, the company touched on a settlement agreement with the major record companies, explaining it was going to “wipe clean” the copyrighted works and give up ownership of the website and its patents.
The full statement is below.
Dear music fans,
Today we are shutting down Grooveshark.
We started out nearly ten years ago with the goal of helping fans share and discover music. But despite best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service.
That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation.
As part of a settlement agreement with the major record companies, we have agreed to cease operations immediately, wipe clean all the data on our servers and hand over ownership of this website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights.
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.
If you love music and respect the artists, songwriters and everyone else who makes great music possible, use a licensed service that compensates artists and other rights holders. You can find out more about the many great services available where you live here: http://whymusicmatters.com/find-music.
It has been a privilege getting to know so many of you and enjoying great music together. Thank you for being such passionate fans.
Yours in music,
Your friends at Grooveshark
April 30, 2015
