Grooveshark finally stops swimming

After ten years of a liberal attitude to copyright, and battles with the music industry, Grooveshark has thrown in the metaphorical towel:

“Today we are shutting down Grooveshark.

We started out nearly ten years ago with the goal of helping fans share and discover music. But despite best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service.

That was wrong. We apologize.
Without reservation.

As part of a settlement agreement with the major record companies, we have agreed to cease operations immediately, wipe clean all of the record companies’ copyrighted works and hand over ownership of this website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights.”

Having spent so much time and money fighting the labels, I'm not entirely sure Grooveshark can really claim they're apologising "without reservation" - "with reluctance but, hey, what can you do" might be nearer the truth.

Grooveshark is convinced it's coming back stronger

It's Groovesharknado. Or possibly Groovesharknado 2. Or maybe 3.

Yes, beleaguered music upload-file-sharing-streaming type site Grooveshark is going to be reborn next year as a legitimate, licenced streaming service. Americans who want a streaming service, but for some reason haven't signed up to a streaming service, will be able to sign on for ninety nine cents a month.

Ninety Nine Cents A Month. For unlimited music.

Given the complaints about the size of royalty cheques which come from Spotify, at that pricepoint Grooveshark will be needing to use standard form to issue payments.

Grooveshark splits up with EMI

Music streaming service Grooveshark has upset most of the major labels, but had at least managed to come to a proper licensing deal with EMI.

EMI, though, is now suing the company, saying it never got its money.

EMI says it's cancelling the deal, and wants $300,000 it says its owed.

Grooveshark has responded with a 'well, I never liked your hair anyway and your feet smell':

“Grooveshark was recently forced to make the difficult decision to part ways with EMI due to EMI’s currently unsustainable streaming rates and EMI’s pending merger with Universal Music Group, which we consider monopolistic and in violation of antitrust laws. To date, Grooveshark has paid over $2.6 million to EMI, but we have yet to find sustainable streaming rates.”

And, to be honest, you'd suspect that EMI's ire is more about their new owners finding an out from a contract than any real beef.

Rhapsody buys European Napster rump

Gigaom seems convinced that Rhapsody's purchase of the UK and German parts of Napster will allow Rhapsody to take on Spotify in Europe.

Perhaps. But, given that I don't think many people in the UK had even realised there was an on-going European Napster after the closure of the American service suggests that it's not really going to make a difference in the UK.

Napster is doing a bit better in Germany - it holds 70% of the steaming market, so it's possible that's where Rhapsody sees the value with the UK service thrown in for free.

Napster doesn't face competition from Spotify in Germany yet and its position was boosted earlier this week when Grooveshark quit the country, saying that the higher royalty rates made it impossible to run a business. (The German royalties organisation, GEMA, counters that Grooveshark had a figure of zero in mind.)