Grooveshark Execs Accused Of Personally Uploading Copyrighted Material

Lawsuit Continues

Music streaming site GROOVESHARK has come under fire in a lawsuit from all the major labels, and now the labels are accusing GROOVESHARK executives of personally uploading copyrighted content.. 

In NOVEMBER (NET NEWS 11/21/11), UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP filed another copyright lawsuit against GROOVESHARK after it obtained e-mails and other records that show GROOVESHARK's leaders led an effort to post more than 100,000 pirated songs onto the music service. Then in DECEMBER (NET NEWS 12/15/11), SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT and WARNER MUSIC GROUP joined the suit. Finally, EMI came onboard in early JANUARY (NET NEWS 1/9).

THE NEW YORK TIMES notes the federal case "accuses GROOVESHARK executives of personally uploading unauthorized content, which is not protected under the law, and of essentially making such uploading company policy. As evidence, the suit included a post from DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS, an industry blog, on which anonymous commenters claiming to be GROOVESHARK employees detailed a culture of open defiance of copyright."

"We are assigned a predetermined amount of weekly uploads to the system," the post read, "and get a small bonus if we manage to go above that."

"DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS has not revealed who left the comments. But in a post on WEDNESDAY, PAUL RESNIKOFF, the site's publisher and founder, said it had been served with a subpoena from GROOVESHARK seeking information about the identities of the commenters, as well as any correspondence with UNIVERSAL. Mr. RESNIKOFF wrote that he would not comply with the subpoena, and in an interview on WEDNESDAY added that he was in discussions with his lawyers about how to fight it."

"We are in the middle of figuring out exactly which laws would protect us, and about how we plan to fight this," he said.

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