Grooveshark

For the past year, Grooveshark has been in talks with EMI Records and other copyright holders to negotiate licensing agreements for the use of their content. We are pleased to announce that over the past few months Grooveshark successfully concluded mutually beneficial agreements with artists, labels, and publishers that we hope to be a template for other such agreements with additional copyright holders.

Recently, EMI Records chose to abandon the template we’ve built with the help of other major copyright holders and opted for their traditional intimidation tactic of filing a lawsuit as a negotiating tool. We find the use of this negotiating strategy counterproductive, as Grooveshark has been willing to conclude an agreement with EMI Records that is economically sustainable for both EMI Records and a start-up company the size of Grooveshark.

Grooveshark is run by a group of young and passionate musicians. We love music, we make music, and we believe that the use of all music should be paid for. We adopted this core philosophy at our inception and to date have concluded agreements with hundreds of record labels, major US performance rights organizations, and thousands of independent artists who support Grooveshark’s business model. (See: Grooveshark Artists)

As musicians, we support the rights of copyright holders and strive to sign sustainable agreements with all content owners, ensuring that all artists get paid–or we agree to remove content from our system in accordance with our DMCA Takedown Policy. We hope that EMI Records eventually follows the lead of the many forward-thinking labels we are already working with, who would rather get their artists exposure and a fair share of our revenue than block content access and force customers to illegal networks.

We understand that the economy of the digital music business is in a state of flux, and we hope to help ease this transition by providing the required new tools and services that lead to the next generation of the music industry. We respect the ownership rights of the major labels and publishers, and our core mission has always been to compete with piracy by offering a service that is genuinely better than what illegal networks offer, while also ensuring fair payment to copyright holders. Our next important step on our road to success is to conclude a mutually beneficial agreement with EMI Records that is sustainable for both EMI and Grooveshark.

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Remember that little link we had on Grooveshark for the past few weeks annoyingly nagging politely asking if you’d vote for Grooveshark in CNET’s 2009 Webware Awards?

We work hard here at Grooveshark, and simply put: we’re delighted just to know that all the late hours and energy drink abuse is worth it to you guys. And while you folks are out in the world being awesome 24/7 365, we’ll be here ready to bring the music you love.

Thanks for voting for us at Grooveshark! from ben westermann-clark on Vimeo.

Speaking of music, I mentioned last week that our quickest way to share tunes has a new (even quicker) hangout. Tinysong, Grooveshark’s baby brother, sprouted legs and got involved with awesome Web 2.0 sharing site Ping.fm. If you aren’t familiar, Ping.fm is one of the funnest* sites for keeping your social (network) life current.

Even cooler: they’re out first partner of our brand new Tinysong API. Say what? Tinysong now gives developers access to the Grooveshark catalog of (millions+millions of) songs–and a simple way to call a quick link to any one of them. Damn.

Talk about the music spreading: check out Grooveshark for Wordpress. It’s our latest launch, letting you post playlists to your Wordpress blogs. What up? And once you post some music to your blog, be sure to let me know in the comments!

*Yes, I know ‘funnest’ isn’t a word. Well it is now.

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Ping!

While us sharks were swimming down into the deepest depths of the dark water of music, we resurfaced with something pretty cool: a new API. As of today, any interested developers or music aficionados can use the Grooveshark Tinysong API to get links to absolutely any song in our collection.

Want to be able to grab a link to almost any tune in the world dynamically on your site? Check it.

Even cooler: while we were swimming the ocean blue, we got hailed by a cool new partner to help launch our new API–Ping.fm. Probably the easiest way to dispatch updates to multiple social sites at once (and definitely the coolest), today Ping.fm launched some new updates to their service; including a kick-ass implementation of Tinysong that lets their users instantly blast tunes to their friends all across the web.

So check them out. Check us out. And check out our inbox if you have any cool ideas, thoughts, or suggestions for an integration with our newest and bluest API.

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Heads up! Grooveshark will be down for scheduled maintenance from 10PM until 6 AM (EST) on Saturday May 2. Don’t panic! We’re moving some servers to a faster data center so that we can keep providing quick, easy access to all your favorite tunes.

If you’re interested, we’ll also be posting updates, photos, and short videos live from the data center where the work is happening. Just come to Grooveshark during the allotted time, and see our (un?)pretty faces!

We’re growing fast, so occasionally we have to go down so that we can keep giving you the best service we know how. But not to worry, we won’t do it too often–and we’re incredibly grateful for your patience, and sticking around even during our early stages.

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A Sunday evening special, one night only. Live from Grooveshark. This one goes out to all of our friends and fellow music-lovers.

grooveshark loves you! from ben westermann-clark on Vimeo.

i was at a party and we couldn’t choose
girl talk or some funky blues;
screw the limitations of the host’s itunes
i pulled up grooveshark and we started groovin too.

the internet ain’t like an pirate cruise
information spreads faster than swine flu,
but there’s sharks in the water who’ll swim with you
and help you just get in the groove.

like a best friend we’re just here to help
we got more records than michael phelps
so if you’re at your computer, want some music and don’t know what to do
we’re here for you

my best friend called me the other day
she wanted to hear some music, did i know a way
to get the songs she wanted but not have to pay?
i just said groove s h a r k

so if you’re a music lover or you’re in a band,
help out the ears of all the fans.
upload your music and in a short timespan
it’ll spread all over the land

now a special word to our best friends:
whytheam, mileless, and ninjen,
jiolasa, patdryburgh, and fastest963
princessleah7x, jdog90, pianowizzy
if i left you out don’t feel wronged,
there’s just only so much room in this song

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Music is a dish best served everywhere–with as little trouble as possible. And a super-amazing friend of Grooveshark, Jayfantsy, was kind enough to translate Grooveshark into Chinese.

We’re working on getting Grooveshark translated into as many different languages as we can, so if you’ve got some linguistic superpower, be sure to let us know! Leave a comment, or shoot us an email!

As always, tons of love. Especially to Jayfantsy.

<3
ben+grooveshark

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