Grooveshark is in the crop of new, streaming music services like Spotify or Mog or Pandora. It claims over 30 million users, which is good when you consider that users provide the content. Users upload tracks for other users to stream, an idea that’s landed Grooveshark in a big old pot of boiling water with most of the major labels.
The company did manage to secure a contract with EMI, which was promising until yesterday, when EMI decided to sue Grooveshark too. EMI claims it hasn’t been sent any royalty payments since the contract took effect back in 2009. According to EMI’s lawyers, two years of royalty checks lands in the neighborhood of $150,000. From the New York Times: “With the music industry coming to rely more and more on fully licensed services like Spotify and Rhapsody that stream music by subscription, EMI’s suit highlights the legal gray zone in which Grooveshark operates.”
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