Grooveshark to Appeal Conviction for Massive Copyright Infringement

On Monday, September 29, Grooveshark, an online music radio and free music streaming provider, lost in a lawsuit filed against them by numerous entertainment and music giants including Atlantic Recording Corporation, Warner Bros. Records, Sony Music Entertainment, and many others. The civil claim, which was filed in U.S. District Court Southern District of New York, found Grooveshark guilty of massive copyright infringement. The guilty verdict was based on statements from former top executives, a preponderance of internal emails, and other direct evidence, according to a news article at Digital Music News.

 

While the charges have yet to be determined, CEO Samuel Tarantino and co-founder/CTO Josh Greenberg will apparently take the brunt of the charges. It seems that other executives at Grooveshark decided to cooperate in a settlement agreement, and were taken off of the defendant list; it also appears that these executives gave the plaintiffs plenty of ammunition. A summary judgment which was granted for the most part last week will likely result in Grooveshark “disappearing,” according to news sources.

Enormous evidence was allegedly presented at court which proved that Grooveshark not only was aware it was infringing content on its site, but that employees were ordered to upload infringing content onto the company’s servers or face penalties. This information was provided in a 2011 email posted anonymously which was said to be lengthy and informative, an email that resulted in another three-year long legal battle which Grooveshark also lost.

One damning piece of evidence emailed to all employees by Tarantino in 2007 said:

“Please share as much music as possible from outside the office, and leave your computers on whenever you can. This initial content is what will help to get our network started—it’s very important that we all help out! If you have available hard drive space on your computer, I strongly encourage you to fill it with any music you can find. Download as many MP3’s as possible, and add them to the folders you’re sharing on Grooveshark. Some of us are setting up special “seed points” to house tens or even hundreds of thousands of files, but we can’t do this alone…

There is no reason why ANYONE in the company should not be able to do this, and I expect everyone to have this done by Monday… IF I DON’T HAVE AN EMAIL FROM YOU IN MY INBOX BY MONDAY, YOU’RE ON MY OFFICIAL SHIT LIST.”

On October 5, it was announced that Grooveshark is appealing the summary judgment, based on the fact that the company does not agree with the decision because it was based on a previous version of the company when it sold music downloads, which Grooveshark allegedly stopped doing in 2008 when it began allowing users to stream through the platform, a system it says is modeled after YouTube.

At Spotora & Associates, we believe it will be interesting to see how this all turns out. Will Grooveshark win if it does go through with the appeal?

As highly skilled Los Angeles copyright infringement attorneys, we provide exceptional legal guidance and representation in all types of entertainment and business areas, including copyright infringement.

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2014 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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