Google Reinstates Grooveshark To Its App Store

Android App Returns To Google's Goog Graces

GOOGLE has reinstated the ANDROID app for the controversial GROOVESHARK music-streaming service to its app store after pulling it for close to a year due to its ongoing legal battle with major record labels.

Last month (NET NEWS 7/12), GROOVESHARK's parent company, ESCAPE MEDIA GROUP, won a glimmer of hope with a court decision that undercut one of the UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP's two copyright infringement cases against it, and also opened the door for it to countersue the label for what could be millions of dollars in damages. But even if GROOVESHARK wins that case, it faces another, bigger infringement suit, as well as another claim in a dispute over publishing royalties -- and questions about whether it can hold on to those licenses it has managed to get.

In a statement, GROOVESHARK said, "We look forward to continuing to build a relationship with ANDROID."

GROOVESHARK CEO SAM TARANTINO told THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, "the company tried to address copyright owners' concerns responsibly."

"We're not trying to stick up our middle fingers to people," he said. "We're trying to build a legitimate business."

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