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Grooveshark Found Guilty of Massive Copyright Infringement 171

Posted by Soulskill from the surprising-nobody dept.
An anonymous reader writes: If you're a Grooveshark user, you should probably start backing up your collection. In a decision (PDF) released Monday, the United States District Court in Manhattan has found Grooveshark guilty of massive copyright infringement based on a preponderance of internal emails, statements from former top executives, direct evidence from internal logs, and willfully deleted files and source code. An email from Grooveshark's CTO in 2007 read, "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! ... 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." He also threatened employees who didn't contribute.
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Grooveshark Found Guilty of Massive Copyright Infringement More

Grooveshark Found Guilty of Massive Copyright Infringement

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  • Their hard drives didn't crash? (Score:5, Funny)

    by DaHat ( 247651 ) on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @03:21PM (#48030151)

    Clearly the management of Grooveshark didn't have the forethought of those at the IRS did to ensure that hard drives containing potentially incriminating emails disappear.

    • Re:Their hard drives didn't crash? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ArcadeMan ( 2766669 ) on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @03:42PM (#48030381)

      The one time IBM Deathstars would have been useful, and they didn't have any.

    • Funny, however.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by s.petry ( 762400 ) on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @03:57PM (#48030465)

      First a disclaimer, I don't feel like reading everything TFA links. Perhaps there is something incriminating in the details, but at least what the summary states is hardly illegal.

      "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! ... 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." He also threatened employees who didn't contribute.

      I don't see any statement about stealing MP3s to share, ignoring copyright claims by artists, or copying personally purchased music into the service. Those things would surely be illegal, and perhaps that is in the evidence somewhere and just didn't make the summary.

      • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

        by geekoid ( 135745 )

        "Download as many MP3’s as possible, and add them to the folders you’re sharing on Grooveshark."

        Distributing copyrighted material without authorization is a crime.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Yeah, except he just authorized that shit! Your move, Kasparov.

        • Re:Funny, however.. (Score:4, Informative)

          by BronsCon ( 927697 ) <social@bronstrup.com> on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @05:08PM (#48031013) Journal
          Who said anything about "without authorization"? Some artists [facebook.com] don't mind it one bit.

          I hadn't realized this track was posted on YouTube. It was a collaboration between me and the enchanting Jo Gabriel, and never actually officially released anywhere. Or at least I thought...

          And, rather than suing, they post a link to the video.

          They're not alone, either. A *ton* of artists would love that kind of exposure. Especially for *free*.

          • Speak for yourselves. The Indie bands I know, need to make rent, and are kind of ticked off at people who think that they should be able to listen to their music without compensating the band.

            • Re:Funny, however.. (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Bill, Shooter of Bul ( 629286 ) on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @06:23PM (#48031525) Journal

              Most often overheard quote indie band quote " I can't eat exposure" .

            • And the indies I know *personally* sell CDs at gigs, primarily because the only people who even know who they are are people at their gigs. One in particular sells TONS of CDs at each of their gigs, they've sold a total of 5 on their website, 4 of which left notes with their orders saying they bought the CD based on a bootleg they found on YouTube.

              That might only be 5 sales, but it's 5 more than they'd have had; with more exposure, that number would be higher.

              Anecdote != data, but there you have it, the

              • So therefore we conclude what? Massive copryight infringement should be allowed because someone sold an extra 5 CDs? If someone wants more exposure, then they can grant permission. It should never be assumed a-priori that you have permission to take without asking.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by xvan ( 2935999 )
                  Copyright rules should be abolished for non commercial use and FRAND rules should be applicable to commercial use, because the current copyright state is:
                  a) unenforceable
                  b) detrimental to culture
                  c) most people don't give a shit about it.

                  • If that were to happen, you could say good bye to more than 99% of all mass produced content as most is created for the non-commercial consumer and has no comparable alternative commercial consumer.

                • If you up a couple posts and read the thread, rather than cherry picking what you think you might be able to attack, you'll see my point. Since I know you won't do that, here's a link to the the relevant comment, to provide some context [slashdot.org]. Where the fuck did I say anything about copyright infringement?

              • Well, then why the hell do they sell their cds and the shows? Why don't they give them away? Or better yet, pay people to take them. then they'd have all the exposure in the world!

                • Wow, missing the boat, really. Some fan puts a bootleg from one of their gigs on YouTube, where someone who *never otherwise would have found them* finds them and, a a result, buys a CD. I can understand why *some* artists wouldn't want this, what with their label taking care of that for them (along with the lion's share of the profits), but that doesn't preclude artists who see the value from deciding to allow it. How many people did the 5 people who bought CDs as a result of the bootleg introduce to their

      • Those things would surely be illegal, and perhaps that is in the evidence somewhere and just didn't make the summary.

        Pretty much. It could be that the statements that mentioned copyright violations of something like 'download MP3s of commercial artists!' were more abstract and obfuscated enough to not make a good headline.

        Also, balance of evidence. A number of emails along the lines of 'find MP3s of music that the owners WANT to share for free' might of saved their asses. Modern copyright law is automatic, the creator of the work owns the copyright automatically and has to explicitly allow sharing. Ergo statements abo

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by s.petry ( 762400 )

          No offense is intended, but I refuse to simply take someone's word for it. I'll try to read through the piles of evidence this evening and see what is there. Sure, it may have not been sensational enough to make a headline, but you don't provide any evidence either.

          I would not be surprised if there is no evidence, because this would not be the first time we have seen a Kangaroo court in action. I have seen copyright be grandfathered in some cases by the MPAA/RIA so this would surely come as no surprise.

          T

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sowelu ( 713889 )

            Do the curious a favor and post what you find, whichever side it comes down on?

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by s.petry ( 762400 )

              From further reading, the ruling is based largely on the Chairman's testimony. There is some corroborating testimony from other employees backing requests from executives to upload "popular" music to their service to seed. Logs and actual evidence are not provided, and searching a bit found nothing. I'm not digging through PACER for this, be my guest if you are inclined :)

              Transcripts are not available so it's impossible to know if context, however the Chairman is quoted stating they "bet the company on t

        • For example, even MP3s of classical music are copyrighted. Sure, the musical score Bach or Beethoven wrote is free of copyright. But the symphony that produced the performance? That's not copyrighted, and the ability to record high fidelity music is so new....

          I believe some of those performances are old enough to have made it into the public domain, and some of those old masters are pretty good.

          • I believe some of those performances are old enough to have made it into the public domain, and some of those old masters are pretty good.

            It's not 2067 yet. [pdinfo.com]

            It would have had to have been produced in 1922 or earlier.

            Works published between 1923 and 1978 are protected for 95 years from date of publication. After 1978 it's 'Life of the longest surviving Author plus 70 years', which works out to 2049 at the earliest. [pdinfo.com] Now consider for classical music that every musician in the symphony can be considered an 'author'. That can be hundreds of people, including a person in their teens. Hell, put a preschooler on the triangle or something. Still,

        • Yes copyright is automatic but if the mere act of downloading copyrighted material was a crime then the internet simply could not (legally) work the way it does since you would need explicit permission to visit a random page prior to visiting said page. So the reasoning goes that if someone puts something on the net, a third party can freely copy it. What the third party can't do is redistribute the material, so messages such as "leave your computer running" are going to hang them. When you think about it.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Altrag ( 195300 )

            you would need explicit permission to visit a random page prior to visiting said page

            Sort of. You typically have permission but you have to assume it implicitly. Being made available (by the copyright owner!) on a public forum is generally a good indication of permission to view (which is not the same as permission to copy, deface, whatever.) Not a guarantee though. There are private websites out there (of course any smart private website will be locked behind technical barriers because legal barriers don't do much unless/until you're able to take someone to court.)

            A music track on the

          • No matter how much "downloading is theft" propaganda the MAFIAA spews, or how much I despise them for it,

            I agree, but I considered the 'and reshare' bit implied when I should have probably mentioned it. If it helps, read my post in the context of 'evidence in addition to the generic orders already known to 'download and share as much music as possible'.

            Also, look at all the torrent stuff out there, you wouldn't ever get 90c per song - too many people would pay a buck for 1 song, if that, as an 'entry fee' and share amongst themselves.

      • I don't see any statement about stealing MP3s to share, ignoring copyright claims by artists, or copying personally purchased music into the service.

        Because you are closing your eyes.

      • perhaps that is in the evidence somewhere and just didn't make the summary.

        Yes, having read TFA there are some statements that ex-employees made:

        The opinion also took note of the testimony of ex-Grooveshark employees who testified on behalf of the record companies. They explained how their bosses ordered them to acquire "the most popular and current songs" and upload them into the Grooveshark system.

        As well as this:

        "Escape openly acknowledged that their business plan was to exploit popular label content in order to grow their service and then 'beg forgiveness' from the plaintiffs

    • More proof that you don't need to be smart or have common sense to be a CEO or CTO. Sending out emails to every employee demanding that they break the law? These are the sorts of boneheaded mistakes you expect to see on the "stupid criminals of the month" column.

  • Why? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @03:27PM (#48030215)

    Why did I have to google the name to figure out WTF Grooveshark was?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dins ( 2538550 )
      Ha - so I'm not the only one...

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Why did I have to perform a search on Bing to figure out WTF "google" was?

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportland@y[ ]o.com ['aho' in gap]> on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @04:10PM (#48030545) Homepage Journal

      Because you are way out of the loop?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        Because you are way out of the loop?

        I could rattle off the names of a half a dozen programs used by people all over the world that you probably know nothing about. Does that make you out of the loop?

        But if I was posting a story on /. I'd at least say what domain the subject worked in.

    • Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)

      by sound+vision ( 884283 ) on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @04:26PM (#48030661) Journal
      It was the hyped-up streaming music service that came after Pandora but before Spotify.

    • Grooveshark is (was) awesome. This is an unfortunate turn of events. It's how music "Should" work. Had the studios worked with them on a the platform and a form of compensation I think it could have been the future of music.

      • Yeah, I just got a grooveshark anywhere account a few months ago. It integrates nicely with Clementine (KDE music player) and XBMC. The nice part of the xbmc extension is that you can queue whatever in with your local music in party mode, keeping party guests from axing the playlist and throwing a keyboard around to listen to music using youtube videos (kids these days...). Unlike spotify, there's no proprietary library and DRM. Just an authenticated REST api and rate limited mp3s (+ api calls to keep it st

      • The concept was a good one, but the major thing that kept bugging me was that I would log in after several weeks or months and my playlists kept shrinking. I don't even know which songs it was removing, but in a lot of cases it would remove some songs by an artist and leave others by the same one (or even the same album).

        • The concept was a good one, but the major thing that kept bugging me was that I would log in after several weeks or months and my playlists kept shrinking. I don't even know which songs it was removing, but in a lot of cases it would remove some songs by an artist and leave others by the same one (or even the same album).

          That would be them complying with DMCA requests in direct contradiction to what was found in this court ruling.

      • The big plus for me is that Grooveshark has some very hard to find music that isn't on Spotify. It was also less prone to Spotify's habit of making tracks unavailable at random if the publisher decides it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Altrag ( 195300 )

        I think it could have been the future of music.

        That's your problem right there. The studios are only interested in the past of music.

  • If your actions will draw powerful opponents ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by davidwr ( 791652 ) on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @03:32PM (#48030279) Homepage Journal

    ... you can't afford to do anything that will give them a knockout blow.

    How would things have turned out differently if the founders of Grooveshark had started off the way they started off - with some illegal uploading and other things - but instead of "carrying on" they closed down their operation then started a whole new "legally clean" one and make 100% certain that neither they nor their officers or employees ever did anything that would give the opposition any ammunition other than, of course, providing a neutral platform for end users to use their services.

    Yes, the opposition could claim "willful blindness" regarding what their customers were doing but their lawyers could reasonably counter-claim that the DMCA specifically allows or even requires hosting providers to be "willfully blind" to infringement unless they receive a specific notification of a specific violation. Thanks to the "dirty hands" of the officers and management, the company will probably never get a judge to rule on that part of the case.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Some content should be avoided... (Score:5, Funny)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @03:45PM (#48030405)
    When I worked at a video game company prior to the dot com bust, one of the QA supervisors kept pestering me to contribute to the internal MP3 server. So I did. I brought in my collection of Patsy Cline CDs, ripped on my workstation, and transferred to the MP3 server. My contribution to the communal music collection was deleted within five minutes and the supervisor stopped pestering me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jaime2 ( 824950 )
      You have admitted to a copyright violation that, according to the precedent set in Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum, carries a penalty of $21,774 per song shared. Please stand against the wall over there along with 50% of the population of the planet that has violated IP enough IP laws to generate more money in fines than they will ever make in their lifetime.

      • You have admitted to a copyright violation that, according to the precedent set in Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum, carries a penalty of $21,774 per song shared. Please stand against the wall over there along with 50% of the population of the planet that has violated IP enough IP laws to generate more money in fines than they will ever make in their lifetime.

        You mean generated more money in fines than the corporations would ever earn in their lifetime.

        • Since the lifetime of a person and a corporation aren't comparable, I will look at the yearly amount. Most corporations generate orders of magnitude more profit than $21,774 per year, but the average person's income wouldn't cover fines for even two songs at that rate.
      • This incident happened in 1999 and preceeded the Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum case in 2003. If I'm not mistaken, the Patsy Cline music from the 1950's were in the public domain. Hence, no copyright violation.

        • Re:Some content should be avoided... (Score:4, Informative)

          by tepples ( 727027 ) <tepples@gmai3.14159l.com minus pi> on Tuesday September 30, 2014 @04:33PM (#48030717) Homepage Journal
          No musical recordings have entered the public domain due to expiration of copyright. Ever. When the U.S. Congress expanded copyright to sound recordings in 1972, it allowed existing sound recording copyright laws at the state level, some of which provide for a perpetual term, to continue for one full work-made-for-hire copyright term. This means all sound recordings produced before 1972 are under copyright in at least one U.S. state until 2067 (17 USC 301(c) [copyright.gov]). If the songs were first published on or after January 1, 1923, the songs are not in the public domain in the United States. If at least one songwriter was surviving on or after January 1, 1944, the songs are not in the public domain in the European Union.
          • From the Royalty Free Music Website [royaltyfreemusic.com]:

            Because copyright is by no means eternal, eventually all creative works will fall into the public domain. For music, there are very specific laws that govern when a piece or song lapses into the public domain. If the Copyright Office has no confirmation that a composer or song-writer is still living and it has been 75 years since the first copyright protection order was granted, or 100 years since the recognized creation date of the piece, it becomes public domain. The reasoning behind this occurrence is both that copyright protection has expired or the creator of the piece is presumed dead. Therefore, it would be assumed that any piece of music copyrighted in 1930 or earlier written by an American songwriter or composer presumed dead by the Copyright Office is now part of the public domain.

            Please note that I'm quoting the above under the fair use provision of the copyright law.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tepples ( 727027 )
              That was written prior to October 1998, when the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 was signed into law. Besides, that applies only to the underlying musical work (as embodied in sheet music and the like), not to any sound recordings thereof. Sound recordings fixed prior to 1972 are covered under state copyright until 2067.
        • Nothing from the 50s is in the public domain. Record companies are still making money re-releasing compilations of Patsy Cline... not to mention their cuts from licensing, like the soundtracks to Fallout New Vegas and LA Noire (those go back to the 1940s and 30s) and the recent Dell commercial that used The Chordettes' "Lollipop", or that recent hyped game that used "Mr. Sandman" in the trailer. Each appearance like this contributes at least six figures to a record label's income that year - and they are i
        • Does precedent not actually effect charges that happened before them, even when brought to court after the precedent is set?

    • Huh? Maybe you didn't realize that "I Fall To Pieces" is not appropriate for video games, especially considering that Patsy Cline did, literally, fall to pieces, I think in 1963.

      • Actually, it was "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" that got me banished from the MP3 server. Patsy Cline was no match for the Back Street Boys.
    • Admitting to owning Patsy Cline CD's is a brave act. I would have just brought in my unopened Lionel Richie vinyl album that somebody left at my house way way back, and let him figure it out. P.S. It's still in the shrink wrap if anybody wants it.

  • I can listen to practically any song I want on youtube or spotify.

    • Spotify pays per play even to indie bands, garage bands, and or any music they play.... not really the same thing.

      youtube is a little weird you can assert your copyright and set up a chanel where you are paid per play and have them take down your content uploaded by fans or just tell them they can leave the content and pay you on a pay per play basis.

      All of it is payed for with ad revenue...

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