Digital Grooveshark Timeline

Do Universal really want Grooveshark to go under?

By | Published on Monday 6 September 2010

According to Digital Music News, Universal Music’s current litigation against half legit, half rogue digital music service Grooveshark won’t end in a happy licensing deal because key players within the major simply want the streaming service shut down. Possibly the same people who are lobbying against giving Spotify a license to run an ad-funded free streaming service in the US.

As previously reported, Grooveshark – which says it operates within the realms of the US’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act – has had legal squabbles with EMI, indie label rights body Merlin and Universal. The first two were settled and resulted in Grooveshark securing licenses to stream music from those two organisations’ catalogues.

Universal’s lawsuit, cleverly constructed to force Grooveshark to defend itself in the New York courts rather than in its home state of Florida, is ongoing. And according to DMN, a source within the major says Universal’s legal team wants to sue the streaming upstart out of business.

DMN quote their source as saying: “Basically, they’ve declared legal jihad against Grooveshark. They want this thing gone, and they want blood, that’s basically it”.

As previously reported, Grooveshark’s iPhone app, initially knocked back by Apple, and then approved by the IT giant, was recently removed from the iPhone app store at the request of the UK office of Universal. Perhaps another move to force the digital company to fight the music major off home turf.



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