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Grooveshark's playlists return on a 'legit' streaming site
Grooveshark's dodgy music service might be gone, but that doesn't mean that your carefully curated playlists have disappeared forever. Newcomer music site StreamSquid claims that it has resurrected about 90 percent of Grooveshark's playlists using a "legit" business model that plays clips from SoundCloud and YouTube. Unlike other pretenders, this isn't an attempt to directly profit from Grooveshark's name -- it's a part-time project, and you don't even need to register. StreamSquid says its immediate goal is to recover your songs, and commercial success would merely be a nice long-term bonus.
Mysterious group relaunches Grooveshark (Update: not really)
Quasi-legal music streaming service Grooveshark shutdown earlier this month as part of a settlement agreement with major labels. But the internet wouldn't let it die. A mysterious team has resurrected the service. One of the team, an individual who calls himself Shark, told BGR, "well, I started backing up all the content on the website when I started suspecting that Grooveshark's demise is close and my suspicion was confirmed a few days later when they closed." The relaunched music-stealing site is a shadow of its former self, but Shark's team hopes to recreate the defunct site's entire UI experience including playlists and favorites. It's unclear if the team is affiliated in any way with the former Grooveshark. Whoever they are, the team behind this zombie version of the site should expect the same type of copyright lawsuits from record labels. Update: As pointed out by commenters, this "resurrected" Grooveshark site is nothing more than a re-skin of music piracy site MP3juices. The privacy policy, copyright and search results are identical on both sites. So someone stole Grooveshark's identity sort like its users were stealing music.
Grooveshark's illegal music streaming service is extinct
Death's icy grip hit more than just Secret this week; Grooveshark is shutting down too. Last year, judges found the music streaming service guilty of mass copyright infringement for hosting illegal uploads of songs from Jay-Z, Madonna and others. As Recode notes, however, something a little more recent was the reason behind the actual closure. Escape Media (Grooveshark's owner) had a few options in court with Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group last week: either pay a possible maximum of $736 million in fines or accept a settlement with record labels to hand over its website, apps and patents.
Grooveshark will launch an internet radio service in 2015
It's rare that you'll find a story about Grooveshark that doesn't include the phrases "copyright," "lawsuit" or "legally questionable." This may change in 2015, however, as it appears the company is about to turn over a new leaf and play nicely with music labels. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the outfit is about to launch a Pandora-esque digital music station that will pay royalties for every song it pays. Currently known as Broadcasts, users will pay 99 cents a month for a service that, thankfully, runs without those dreaded commercials.
Judge finds Grooveshark employees guilty of mass copyright-infringement
Grooveshark's disappearing and reappearing act looks like it could finally come to an end; permanently. A Manhattan judge has ruled that because Grooveshark employees themselves had uploaded 5,977 songs to the service and infringing on copyrights in the process, the outfit couldn't be granted safe harbor for hosting music from the likes of Jay-Z and Madonna. Meaning, the firm's previous method of compliance under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was null and void because it wasn't users who uploaded the copyrighted material (which would be subsequently removed upon request), it was in-house staffers including CEO Samuel Tarantino and CTO Joshua Greenberg, according to The New York Times. Reuters notes that there was also evidence of internal communications from Greenberg that told employes to share music as much as possible from outside the office in an effort to foster growth -- all as a condition of employment.
Grooveshark circles back again, swaps app for HTML5
It's hard to keep up with whether Grooveshark is in the Google Play store, or out again, but now it doesn't matter. The music streaming service has decided to ditch its yo-yoing app, and instead opt for a flashy new HTML5 website for all devices. It's gone live in the US with an international launch "in the coming months", although this London-based editor didn't have any trouble using it. If you've been missing your favorites list, then jump over to Grooveshark.com and get listening -- after all, you might see it disappear again soon if a fresh lawsuit from EMI has any impact.
Grooveshark app nowhere to be found, suddenly disappears from Google Play again
Oh poor, poor Grooveshark. Not long after surprisingly making its way back to the Android Market Google Play store, the streaming service's Android application appears to be long gone yet again. If you'll recall, the music app was pulled from Mountain View's shop a few months back; this due to many claims from labels which suggested Grooveshark was allowing users to download tunes at no cost. Still, mum's the word on why the app has been nixed out of Google Play this time around -- especially after the service announced it had worked closely with the Android maker to get the official app reinstalled. For what it's worth, however, word on the internet is the application can still be installed via the Grooveshark site, but we'll have to leave that dicey decision up to you.
Grooveshark back in Google Play after piracy hullabaloo
Grooveshark is no stranger to controversy, but after it was sued by major music labels, Google decided it'd had enough and pulled the app last year. But the streaming service said it's never allowed free downloading, claiming other apps using its name without permission were permitting the piracy instead. The faux-Grooveshark offenders were booted with Google's help, and the app has subsequently been re-stocked on Play's virtual shelves. Meanwhile, the company has paid its debt to EMI, and could even be the target of an acquisition, according to CNET. So, if you want to share the news with your pals (along with some tunes), hit the source below.
Musicality: AirPlay popular music services to enabled speakers
Musicality (US$9.99) offers one-app access to Pandora, Last.fm, and Grooveshark streaming music services. What's more, it adds in extra features that integrate with Growl notifications (so you can immediately see what song is playing, even when the app itself is hidden) and AirPlay. It's this latter feature that had me asking to take a look at the app. With AirPlay, you can stream your music from your computer to any AirPort Express, AirPlay-enabled speaker system, or Apple TV. Musicality offers separate destination and volume controls for each AirPlay destination it finds on your local network. If you wish, you can mute your computer and send your music exclusively to your AirPlay speakers. In my testing, the app worked exactly as promised. It took just seconds for me to create a new Pandora radio station and start it playing back on the (good) speakers attached to the Apple TV. Local volume control meant I could adjust that playback without having to stand up and walk over to tweak the physical knobs. Beyond AirPlay, the app seems to be a solid player. I admit my interests were pretty much limited to choosing music and playing them remotely and Musicality ably provided those features. Musicality also offers support for the integrated keyboard media keys found on most Apple keyboards and works without need for opening a browser. You can give Musicality a free try for 10 days via a time limited demo. If you like it, it's just US$10 to purchase. We were curious how the new Mountain Lion preview and its built-in screen streaming might affect the future of Musicality. TUAW contacted Industrious One Owner Jason Perkins. He told TUAW, "I've had a chance to check it out, and I am confident that AirPlay mirroring will not negatively effect Musicality in any way. Display mirroring isn't of much benefit to us, but our built-in AirPlay support continues to work great, and the new share sheets, notifications, and other new APIs will only make it better."
Music Smasher searches Spotify, Rdio, MOG and more in one shot
When it comes to streaming music services are you something of an agnostic? That's not necessarily a bad thing -- Spotify, Rdio, MOG, Grooveshark, etc... all have their strengths and weaknesses (Spotify, for example, is a great source for Norwegian black metal). The trouble is, it's neither fun nor easy to jump from app to app, web site to web site just to find what you're looking for. Music Smasher simplifies things by letting you search most of the big sources in online streaming tunes simultaneously. It trolls the four services mentioned earlier, as well as SoundCloud and Bandcamp. Well, it searches Grooveshark in theory, but every query we tried simply returned undefined results. Hit up the source to try it out for yourself.
Grooveshark goes dark in Germany over 'unreasonably high' license fees
The masses of online music streamers in Germany have discovered that there's one less option for blasting Cee Lo Green. Grooveshark has pulled the plug on its services in the country due to the seemingly truckloads of cash it was shelling out to GEMA, the performance and reproduction rights organization. The US-based music streaming service is no stranger to licensing quarrels, though, as they've been in scuffles with Sony, Universal, Warner and EMI in the States.
Chrome Web Store, HTML5 and the iPad: symbiosis at its best
It's all coming together, folks. It doesn't take much of a gander at the Chrome Web Store to notice a trend: some of the flashiest, most mature "apps" are actually just in-browser versions of iPad apps. And you know what else? Most of these "apps" actually run fine in Safari on the iPad. We're not sure how long Google gave developers to port their experiences over, but it seems like most of the best work had already been done in the form of HTML5 apps that were merely wrapped in app form for App Store delivery. Google's just taking things to the next logical step. Continue after the break as we expand this thesis paragraph into a number of supporting blocks of text, a few jazzy pictorial examples, and a stunning closer.
Streaming app Grooveshark pulled from App Store
Grooveshark, the music-streaming app that's had a home on Cydia for the past year, was kicked out of the App Store after Apple notified the company that they received a complaint from Universal Music Group UK. While Apple has approved streaming music apps (such as Rhapsody) in the past, Grooveshark's woes appear to be related to a lawsuit between the company and Universal Music Group. The lawsuit, reported by CNET in January, alleges that Grooveshark is distributing illegal copies of the company's music. A similar suit with EMG was resolved in 2009. Grooveshark is still available for other mobile devices, so if you're a fan of the service, you may want to stick with your Cydia copy if your iPhone is jailbroken or download it to one of those. I don't think we'll be seeing this app back in the App Store until this lawsuit is resolved. [Via ReadWriteWeb]
