grooveshark.com
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- ukit0
I'm telling you, gone within a year. You can look at what the service is offering now and say it is awesome (I, like e-wo, am a little less blown away but I can see why people like it), but that doesn't change the fact that their business model is basically unsustainable AND they have one music company after another extracting concessions from them in court.
The last settlement, with Merlin music company, dictated that they had to pay not only fees for every single song moving forward, but for every song that was ever played retroactively. Not good for the finances of a company that is not even profitable yet.
And they still have a much larger music company, UMG, going after them. Not to try and be negative but it's a pattern that seems to crop up every few years - a couple kids (the two Grooveshark founders are ~20 years old I think) start a company that basically gives away music for free and frame it as a "new business model."
The major labels don't want to be seen as the bad guys so they don't put them out of business directly, but instead hobble them with such heavy costs that the company can't survive. A year later, and they quietly exit stage right.
- it will exist for smaller record labels. I think it's the inevitable conclusion to the evolution of music on the internets.hotroddy
- NathanNice0
it wasn't Apple that was greedy though was it?
- hotroddy0
apple removed the grooveshark app from itunes. greedy sons of bitches. Can't wait to transition to android.
- rosem0
the iphone app appears to be removed from the store. :(
- mattiaBK0
Love the site, I just found out about it, and I've been really impressed. I found pretty much anything I wanted to listen to.
- moldero0
shits dope!
- cuke4260
how does this compare to rdio?! i love rdio but never have used grooveshark
- hotroddy0
My mistake. It does work on wifi.
- M_C_P0
huh? the iphone app requires 3G or wifi. what do you mean it doesn't work with wireless networks? streaming is all data and last time i checked att offers data plans at 250mb, 2gig and for those grandfathered in, unlimited.
- hotroddy0
It doesn't work with wireless networks so your ATT data bill will be through the roof.
- NathanNice0
THANKU
- M_C_P0
looks like apple just approved the grooveshark app so you no longer need to jailbreak your iPhone to get yer shark on. word!
- Dodecahedron0
I like the promotions they're doing with artists, labels seems to be giving them a chance.
- M_C_P0
ukit, it seems it's no longer a matter of legitimacy since the questionable aspects of it are gone, labels are partnering up and companies like hp are advertising with them. regarding the numbers, i've wondered that too. its a similar model to pandora so i imagine grooveshark has viability in the marketplace. time will tell.
- M_C_P0
i dunno about better since it's kinda two different services. pandora is streaming radio: you define a genre or band and they play songs in that vein. grooveshark is more streaming on demand so you choose your content.
apart from that, grooveshark allows multiple repeats of the same song, ff & rew, playlists, etc. they do have a radio feature, but it's nowhere near pandora.
- Frosty_spl0
Is this better or any different than Pandora?
- chuparosa0
Love, love, love grooveshark. I used to listen on lala but once it got shut down I found grooveshark. So glad I did. I'm very surprised this is free. I agree that the radio feature isn't so great.
- 3030
I love grooveshark. They really do great job over there.
They also have iphone/ipod touch app which was rejected by apple. If you have one with jailbreak you can use it.
http://mobile.grooveshark.com/ph…
Has anyone of you tried it?
- ukit0
I just wonder if the numbers actually add up. You can say we're going to support it with ads and it sounds like a win for everyone but I feel like if the economics of it really worked the music industry would have jumped on it years ago.
The funny thing is, Grooveshark's whole approach was basically to launch something that was completely illegal when they first came out. They didn't reimburse artists at all, they just let people play music for free. And the labels obviously sued them but in the meantime they managed to acquire enough users that the labels decided to settle and change their business model instead of completely put them out of business. So now apparently they do pay royalties to artists when you play music. I just haven't seen any numbers that indicate a business model like this is actually profitable yet.
- They just settled with another distributor last week: http://www.digitalmu…ukit