Grooveshark, buried under a lengthy and expensive lawsuit from the Universal Music Group, has announced that it will shut down immediately. A statement from the service on Thursday acknowledged mistakes and that it will wipe its servers clean.
Music Times reported earlier this week that fines-per-violation in the lawsuit had escalated dramatically, up to 400 percent, due to evidence from e-mails and evidence of wrongdoing on the service's behalf. Although the final numbers are much lower than what Universal was initially suing for—down from $17.1 billion in damages to a possible $736 million—that's a number that Escape Media (the owner of Grooveshark) just can't handle. We might be cynical, but one has to think that by issuing the following statement and expressing remorse and acknowledging guilt, that Grooveshark is trying to win sympathy from the jury, and therefore earn a lower punishment.
"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," reads the statement. "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 the data on our servers and hand over ownership of this website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights."
Part of the letter also insinuated that Grooveshark had inspired the creation of newer, larger (and more legal) services such as Spotify and Deezer...perhaps trying to boost its image as well.
Stay tuned to find out how much Escape will end up paying for the "serious mistakes." After four years of litigation, you can imagine that legal fees will be costly unto themselves.
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