7 ms·

How are our (I'm a grooveshark employee) legal tactics questionable? We sign deals with new labels all the time and our #1 company-wide goal is to help an arti

by physcab 15y ago

How are our (I'm a grooveshark employee) legal tactics questionable? We sign deals with new labels all the time and our #1 company-wide goal is to help an artist make over $1M through our service. Here is a list of all our label agreements: http://www.grooveshark.com/labelslist http://www.grooveshark.com/labelslist. I don't think its updated though since we have a deal with EMI and I can't find it on the list. Yes, a few of the other majors are missing, but that is always an on-going conversation. We also fully comply with the DMCA in the same way YouTube and all other UGC sites work. Case in point: try searching for Beatles.

makmanalp 15y ago
Hi, I'm a longtime grooveshark fan and user but I've also had similar questions to the grandparent. You let users upload music arbitrarily. You also add that music to your index and use it globally on the site (or I presume so, since some of your music has irregular tags or tags that say things like "radio rip"). How is this legal? I don't think you're allowed to upload music and keep it there as long as you don't get a complaint about it. That's basically the same thing as having an ftp full of mp3s. You can't even claim that you're not hosting the content. Maybe what you're doing is more similar to what youtube is doing.
- earbitscom 15y ago
  It's legal because the person uploading it agrees to their terms and says it's not copyrighted, or that they have the right to upload it. In most cases, these people do not. Grooveshark relies on DMCA and says that they prohibit this behavior but they know full well that tons of the content being uploaded is copyrighted. The simple fact is, they should know what content they have licenses for, and what content they don't. Maintaining a list of the top 1,000,000 bands in the world and not letting anybody upload tracks with metadata that included those bands and song names in it would not be that difficult. The data is there, because otherwise users could not search for those band names and find what they're looking for. Simply put, if Grooveshark did everything they could to fight copyrighted material being added to their site, they wouldn't have a business. Maybe now that they have some licenses and an audience they could survive, but they would have never gotten to where they were without significant illegal content being uploaded and accessed by their users.
  - physcab 15y ago
    > Maintaining a list of the top 1,000,000 bands in the world and not letting anybody upload tracks with metadata that included those bands and song names in it would not be that difficult. I addressed this in my other comment, but as it turns out, this aspect of the problem is incredibly difficult. Metadata can be wrong and we can't always depend on it. So we use waveform analysis. But thats difficult too due to the indexing and storage requirements and the accuracy of the algorithm performing the search. Also this list is not finite. It changes constantly and parties are always bickering over rights to content and that takes time to sort out. We actually have a team of people who handle takedown requests, and we have another team of people who put in the necessary restrictions to keep content from getting played or uploaded.
    - Joakal 15y ago
      Have you tried to do a fingerprint of files? Also, what's waveform analysis?
    - earbitscom 15y ago
      The simple fact is, without mainstream content, Grooveshark would be a joke. Putting in a requirement - Do not play songs with the word Primus in the metadata - would probably "accidentally" keep out some cover bands' songs that are legally uploaded, but it would do a very good job of keeping out most Primus music. Even if that music showed up, but without the metadata, nobody would be finding it in searches, which also helps eliminate the use of that illegal content. What you do, frankly, is close to the legal minimum because the business wouldn't exist if you did a better job at it. Within 5 minutes I can go find music on Grooveshark that is there illegally. It ought to be pretty easy for you to do the same queries and prevent that from happening. Would you prevent legal music? Yes. What is more important - that some cover band be allowed to post their music, or that Primus be allowed to retain their rights? Particularly when you consider that nobody is coming to Grooveshark to hear covers of Primus. I'm not saying that operating legally in the music industry is easy - far from it. But on the spectrum of trying to, unprofitable Pandora is on one side, and Grooveshark is waving hello in the far distance.
earbitscom 15y ago
Grooveshark has been playing a lot of copyrighted material without licenses for a very long time. It takes it down; the content reappears. I understand that you're somewhat protected by DMCA, but the entire business was built on the backs of mostly mainstream content. It wasn't until you already had a big audience that you started securing the majority of your most important licenses, and plenty of the music there is still not properly licensed. EMI is a perfect example. Only recently did you get a license from them, and yet their artists have been playing on Grooveshark for ages. If you really did a good job of making sure the music that was uploaded wasn't copyrighted, you wouldn't have a business because nobody would be looking for that music. The period between illegal mainstream content going up, and that content coming down, is just long enough for Grooveshark to have a competitive cost advantage over companies who properly license their material from day one. If the tactics aren't at least "questionable", then why has Universal declared "legal jihad" on Grooveshark? P.S. My band's music is on your site. I didn't put it there and neither did anybody else with proper authority to do so.
- physcab 15y ago
  Its not a black or white issue. Licensing is incredibly complex with ownership sometimes changing between territories, products, people and having the technology in place to enforce specific terms so all parties are happy. I'm not completely knowledgeable about the subject so I won't comment on that further, but its not something we turn a blind eye to. Our content ID system is getting better and better. Ultimately its a question of resources, and when you're a cash-starved startup, you're spread super thin. My point is that we genuinely do our best to help artists. We're good people. If you want your band's presence taken down, you're entitled to have that done for you. You can also leave your music up so millions of users can discover it and find out more about who you are. We have tens of thousands of individual artists managing their own music and we get tons of fan mail from artists who say that our platform has not only decreased piracy but has actually encouraged fans to buy more of their music and see their shows. http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/040811grooveshark http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/040811grooveshark
  - earbitscom 15y ago

by physcab 15y ago

makmanalp 15y ago

Hi, I'm a longtime grooveshark fan and user but I've also had similar questions to the grandparent. You let users upload music arbitrarily. You also add that music to your index and use it globally on the site (or I presume so, since some of your music has irregular tags or tags that say things like "radio rip"). How is this legal? I don't think you're allowed to upload music and keep it there as long as you don't get a complaint about it. That's basically the same thing as having an ftp full of mp3s. You can't even claim that you're not hosting the content. Maybe what you're doing is more similar to what youtube is doing.

earbitscom 15y ago
It's legal because the person uploading it agrees to their terms and says it's not copyrighted, or that they have the right to upload it. In most cases, these people do not. Grooveshark relies on DMCA and says that they prohibit this behavior but they know full well that tons of the content being uploaded is copyrighted. The simple fact is, they should know what content they have licenses for, and what content they don't. Maintaining a list of the top 1,000,000 bands in the world and not letting anybody upload tracks with metadata that included those bands and song names in it would not be that difficult. The data is there, because otherwise users could not search for those band names and find what they're looking for. Simply put, if Grooveshark did everything they could to fight copyrighted material being added to their site, they wouldn't have a business. Maybe now that they have some licenses and an audience they could survive, but they would have never gotten to where they were without significant illegal content being uploaded and accessed by their users.
- physcab 15y ago
  > Maintaining a list of the top 1,000,000 bands in the world and not letting anybody upload tracks with metadata that included those bands and song names in it would not be that difficult. I addressed this in my other comment, but as it turns out, this aspect of the problem is incredibly difficult. Metadata can be wrong and we can't always depend on it. So we use waveform analysis. But thats difficult too due to the indexing and storage requirements and the accuracy of the algorithm performing the search. Also this list is not finite. It changes constantly and parties are always bickering over rights to content and that takes time to sort out. We actually have a team of people who handle takedown requests, and we have another team of people who put in the necessary restrictions to keep content from getting played or uploaded.
  - Joakal 15y ago
    Have you tried to do a fingerprint of files? Also, what's waveform analysis?
  - earbitscom 15y ago
    The simple fact is, without mainstream content, Grooveshark would be a joke. Putting in a requirement - Do not play songs with the word Primus in the metadata - would probably "accidentally" keep out some cover bands' songs that are legally uploaded, but it would do a very good job of keeping out most Primus music. Even if that music showed up, but without the metadata, nobody would be finding it in searches, which also helps eliminate the use of that illegal content. What you do, frankly, is close to the legal minimum because the business wouldn't exist if you did a better job at it. Within 5 minutes I can go find music on Grooveshark that is there illegally. It ought to be pretty easy for you to do the same queries and prevent that from happening. Would you prevent legal music? Yes. What is more important - that some cover band be allowed to post their music, or that Primus be allowed to retain their rights? Particularly when you consider that nobody is coming to Grooveshark to hear covers of Primus. I'm not saying that operating legally in the music industry is easy - far from it. But on the spectrum of trying to, unprofitable Pandora is on one side, and Grooveshark is waving hello in the far distance.

earbitscom 15y ago

Grooveshark has been playing a lot of copyrighted material without licenses for a very long time. It takes it down; the content reappears. I understand that you're somewhat protected by DMCA, but the entire business was built on the backs of mostly mainstream content. It wasn't until you already had a big audience that you started securing the majority of your most important licenses, and plenty of the music there is still not properly licensed. EMI is a perfect example. Only recently did you get a license from them, and yet their artists have been playing on Grooveshark for ages. If you really did a good job of making sure the music that was uploaded wasn't copyrighted, you wouldn't have a business because nobody would be looking for that music. The period between illegal mainstream content going up, and that content coming down, is just long enough for Grooveshark to have a competitive cost advantage over companies who properly license their material from day one. If the tactics aren't at least "questionable", then why has Universal declared "legal jihad" on Grooveshark? P.S. My band's music is on your site. I didn't put it there and neither did anybody else with proper authority to do so.

physcab 15y ago
Its not a black or white issue. Licensing is incredibly complex with ownership sometimes changing between territories, products, people and having the technology in place to enforce specific terms so all parties are happy. I'm not completely knowledgeable about the subject so I won't comment on that further, but its not something we turn a blind eye to. Our content ID system is getting better and better. Ultimately its a question of resources, and when you're a cash-starved startup, you're spread super thin. My point is that we genuinely do our best to help artists. We're good people. If you want your band's presence taken down, you're entitled to have that done for you. You can also leave your music up so millions of users can discover it and find out more about who you are. We have tens of thousands of individual artists managing their own music and we get tons of fan mail from artists who say that our platform has not only decreased piracy but has actually encouraged fans to buy more of their music and see their shows. http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/040811grooveshark http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/040811grooveshark
- earbitscom 15y ago