The Grooveshark Settlement [pdf]

First:

I was an occasional user of Grooveshark, and whenever I used the service (which had a brilliant UI, by the way) I found myself wondering how they could still be operating, given that they weren't licensed by the major labels. It felt like Napster in a web app, only more centralized (and thus, easier to take down, one would think).

Well, the answer seems to be that they have been fighting the major labels in the court this whole time (~5 years). Unlike maybe everyone else who has faced up against the major labels, Grooveshark forced them to fight. When the labels didn't give them a licensing deal, and told them to stop operating, Grooveshark responded, "Make us."

They created their tech, built a loyal following, grew their business, all the while fighting this lawsuit. In the end, the only thing that stopped them from pursuing their vision was a judges' order. This settlement seems to be a judge-mediated settlement of only the damages portion of the trial after liability had been established. It seems that the judge ruled against Grooveshark by summary judgement in September, which means they have known for more than 7 months that this was inevitable. They shut down their service 2 days ago.

People have called Grooveshark "shady", and many people believe that their business model was "illegal". Both adjectives may be accurate descriptions. I think the best adjective to describe these guys, however, is "gutsy".

Second:

The front-end system that Grooveshark built, which is the best that I have used for music playback and discovery, is now jointly owned by the major labels. They cannot possibly be short-sighted enough just to throw that away. Will we see Grooveshark resurrected as a label-owed alternative to Spotify, et al? Will they try to maintain any portion of the Grooveshark organization, especially the engineering team? Again, they would be foolish not to try, although maybe I'm giving them too much credit.