TORONTO – Online music streaming service Grooveshark officially shut down Thursday following a lengthy battle with the music industry.
The website, which launched in 2007, was being sued by a number of record companies for copyright infringement, including a US$15-billion suit from Universal Music Group.
“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 holder for the vast amount of music on the service,” read the statement posted to the service’s homepage Thursday.
“That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation.”
In addition to shutting down its services, Grooveshark said it must also wipe clean any records of copyrighted material and hand over ownership of its website, mobile apps, patents and copyrights.
Grooveshark had a long history of legal troubles with the music industry.
In 2011, Universal Music brought a US$15-billion lawsuit against the service, claiming the website had uploaded more than 100,000 songs without permission.
In March, a ruling by a U.S. Federal Judge granted EMI Music North America a motion for summary judgement on claims that Grooveshark violated its copyrights. The decision could have found the website liable to pay upwards of $420 million, according to Time.
Grooveshark had also faced copyright violation suits from Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and various independent labels.
Grooveshark’s app was also removed from the Google Play store and Apple’s App Store following the controversy.
In its statement, Grooveshark urged music fans to use licenced services that compensate artists and rights holders to listen to music going forward.
Grooveshark even tipped its hat to what it called “fan friendly” and “affordable” services like Spotify, Google Play, Rdio and Beats Music as alternatives to its platform.
Grooveshark’s full statement is below:
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