6 ms·

Judge Rules Against Grooveshark in Copyright Infringement Case

59 points by bdb 12y ago

ztratar 12y ago
I never really agreed with the whole "ignore copyright law" approach. I think tech companies in our increasingly examined world need to stand for righteousness and integrity. The power of tech and ramping up of robotics is going to bring the pressure of public opinion on us all very soon -- we need to be on the right side of the fence, and so, although I enjoyed the technical capabilities and innovation from Grooveshark, I'm glad they've lost the war. The founders are still smart and will be able to continue to do great things. They've proven their ability to build/design a functioning, beautiful product and amass an very large audience. Excited to see what is next...
- rando289 12y ago
  righteousness and integrity != law abiding
- nickonline 12y ago
  > I'm glad they've lost the war I don't understand this statement, that wasn't the end of the 'war', Grooveshark lost a battle, just like Napster and Limewire were not ends of the 'war'. Ultimately (as another poster has said) the reason we can get nice things like the Spotify, iTunes and Amazon music services is because people were fighting these battles and winning until the law smacked them down. I think you should reflect on the first paragraph further, services such as Grooveshark and Uber are skirting the law and users prefer these methods for a reason. Without these disruptions maybe we'd have to buy albums on a USB thumb drive rather than download them over the net.
- pantaril 12y ago
  >we need to be on the right side of the fence I agree but i think that current copyright is on the wrong side of the "fence".
retroencabulato 12y ago
Why do you link to websites with a paywall?
- DanBC 12y ago
  The paywall kicks in after X free reads. People submitting links to paywalled articles may have subscriptions; they may not know about the paywall and not have reached the paywall limit yet; they may routinely use paywall evading methods.
- bdb 12y ago
  Because the content is of high quality.
- zaroth 12y ago
  The perfect question, and the perfect answer. (Upvotes both)
- tinypass 12y ago
  Most advanced paywall companies have a feature that enable premium content publishers to make exceptions to the paywall for referral links. Yes, they want subscribers. But they still want to drive traffic from social sharing.
munchbunny 12y ago
It's interesting (at least to me) to think that without the likes of Napster, LimeWire, Kazaa, Grooveshark, Pandora, etc. we would not have gotten to a place where the music industry is willing to play ball at Spotify's level. It's too bad that there was a lot of collateral damage in the process.
- tantalor 12y ago
  The iTunes Store deserves much of the credit for that shift.
  - Animats 12y ago
    True. That, not the iPod, was Apple's real weapon. Apple was able to bring that off because for a reason that's not well understood. Remember, Apple was nowhere in consumer electronics at the time. There were bigger companies with MP3 players. But Apple had an edge. Hollywood, which includes the music industry, is very hierarchical. Steve Jobs was not only CEO of Apple. He was also CEO of Pixar. As the head of a major movie studio, he outranked all music executives. He could deal with them as their superior. That got him in the door. iTunes is now the largest music vendor in the world.
    - e12e 12y ago
      Lets not forget that Sony Music/Entertainment kept hobbling Sony Tech. Which supposedly is why Sony had a few brilliant mp3 players, and then ... nothing. For a few years. It's ludicrous -- the company had the music rights, movie rights, patents and technical know-how -- but just refused accepting the way the trends were going.
  - qq66 12y ago
    Itunes got labels to accept $2 per album per user rather than $10. Spotify got labels to accept 2 cents.
- qq66 12y ago
  Yes, Spotify's value proposition to rights holders is "we're paying you something, it's better than Grooveshark." Another situation where a nominally powerful entity makes a major concession to avoid even higher losses to illegal activity is in tax policy. Many types of taxes are lower than they would be if evasion wasn't a partial substitute for compliance.
siliconc0w 12y ago
The reality is more and more services will switch to the 'client-side-encrypted' model and then you're left trying to stomp out easily replicated and anonymously sharable lists of pointers to legally stored encrypted blobs. Good luck with that. From an ideological point it seems hard to rationalize. We pretty much have an obligation to fix copyright law, build a digital Alexandria, and give it to the world. For Free. All art, movies, music, books, educational materials, everything. Free. We can figure out another way to reward creators without creating artificial marketplaces that demand most go without so the few left have reason to spend. If we're going to fuck up the climate for later generations - I think we can manage to at least figure this out. It's pretty low hanging fruit from a technical perspective.
- wmf 12y ago
  Once you have the pointer (which includes the decryption key), can't you then send a normal DMCA takedown?
  - siliconc0w 12y ago
    The theoretical service uses distributed RAID6 -it detects the downed file - builds it back from distributed parity - and bans your client by hardware UUID. Your last known coordinates gathered from bluetooth/wifi/gps are broadcasted to local library users so they can ask you what's up.
    - wmf 12y ago
      Oh, I thought you were talking about Mega, not science fiction.
      - siliconc0w 12y ago
        Auto repairing distributed storage, client link tracking, and banning devices by hardware ID are actually all pretty common. The bit about the users is a bit hyperbolic but could also easily be done. They could get rewarded with virtual avatar gear to protest on your lawn for messing with their library.
fragsworth 12y ago
I don't see how the judge could rule against Grooveshark. How is Grooveshark any different from Youtube, for instance? The only difference is that the users, on their own, upload much less of their own content on Grooveshark than they do on Youtube. The users are more prone to upload illegal work. But that seems like an arbitrary reason to make this ruling. It's unfortunate that the law can be so vague and ill-defined, and arbitrarily interpreted, usually to the benefit of larger corporations.
- wmf 12y ago
  Did you see the part of the article where employees of Grooveshark uploaded infringing music?
  - flavor8 12y ago
    Youtube weren't significantly better: https://gigaom.com/2010/03/18/viacom-google-youtube-founders-willfully-ignored-infringement/ https://gigaom.com/2010/03/18/viacom-google-youtube-founders...
jediforce 12y ago
Digital Music News has a copy of the decision. Fascinating stuff: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/umg_escape_140929Decision.pdf?638cab http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/u... Also, Paul Resnikoff's take on the story: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/09/29/breaking-grooveshark-found-guilty-massive-copyright-infringement http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/09/29/breakin...
Terr_ 12y ago
Whelp, time to export my playlist-metadata so I can find the songs again: http://groovebackup.com/ http://groovebackup.com/
vorg 12y ago
Content, like code, should be free! We also need a judge somewhere to rule against the shark who hijacked the Groovy codebase and turned it all into something it wasn't originally intended to be - surely that's a copyright infringement. Instead of a specified language with many open source implementations and much documentation as per its creator's vision, it's all being controlled by one corporate with hardly anyone contributing. The project person who makes the announcements is now using his own personal blog instead of the public mailing list to announce new versions, and is trying to replace the open communication channels by soliciting for subscribers to a personal mailout that mostly contains links to tweets.
- talmand 12y ago
  Content, like code, should be priced at the level the creator wishes it to be while considering the price the market is willing to pay.
  - vorg 12y ago
    > [...] while considering the price the market is willing to pay What about considering the cost of enforcement? Content "creators" in Hollywood and CBS et al offload their enforcement costs to U.S. government agencies which are funded by tax-payers, not those "creators" (though in fact those "creators" are really content copiers most of the time).
teachingaway 12y ago
WARNING - the Grooveshark founders were Personally liable for the copyright infringement. This means its not just the Grooveshark company that has to pay the fine, but cofounders Tarantino and Greenberg will need to pay out of their own pockets. From Pages 54-56 of the decision: > Here, defendants Tarantino and Greenberg satisfy the criteria for corporate officer liability. Tarantino and Greenberg are the co-founders of Escape. Tarantino is the Chief Executive Officer and Greenberg is the Chief Technology Officer. Together, Tarantino and Greenberg manage all aspects of Escape’s business. They both directed the infringements at issue in the present litigation by: (1) creating a business model that was based upon the unlicensed sharing of copyright protected material; (2) sending written instructions to the entire company requiring employees to operate “seeding points” so that they could launch the Grooveshark P2P Network; (3) creating the Central Music Library and directing employees to upload files to the Library; (4) deciding to launch the Grooveshark Lite streaming service and instructing Escape employees to upload files for that service; and (5) personally uploading copyrighted protected material, Moreover, they both have a substantial equity interest in Groovershark and thus, directly benefit from the infringing activity.
diafygi 12y ago
Awww, I loved their Programming broadcast. I originally went to groovshark after turntable.fm shut down. Now where should I go for a programmer radio stream?
ue_ 12y ago
When will we stop hobbling ourselves with copyright? It's used to harass people or guarantee profits (or both; the evidence that copyright infringement has an effect on profits is debatable). The failed business models of publishers is not my problem.

59 points by bdb 12y ago

I never really agreed with the whole "ignore copyright law" approach. I think tech companies in our increasingly examined world need to stand for righteousness and integrity. The power of tech and ramping up of robotics is going to bring the pressure of public opinion on us all very soon -- we need to be on the right side of the fence, and so, although I enjoyed the technical capabilities and innovation from Grooveshark, I'm glad they've lost the war. The founders are still smart and will be able to continue to do great things. They've proven their ability to build/design a functioning, beautiful product and amass an very large audience. Excited to see what is next...

rando289 12y ago
righteousness and integrity != law abiding
nickonline 12y ago
> I'm glad they've lost the war I don't understand this statement, that wasn't the end of the 'war', Grooveshark lost a battle, just like Napster and Limewire were not ends of the 'war'. Ultimately (as another poster has said) the reason we can get nice things like the Spotify, iTunes and Amazon music services is because people were fighting these battles and winning until the law smacked them down. I think you should reflect on the first paragraph further, services such as Grooveshark and Uber are skirting the law and users prefer these methods for a reason. Without these disruptions maybe we'd have to buy albums on a USB thumb drive rather than download them over the net.
pantaril 12y ago
>we need to be on the right side of the fence I agree but i think that current copyright is on the wrong side of the "fence".

retroencabulato 12y ago

Why do you link to websites with a paywall?

DanBC 12y ago
The paywall kicks in after X free reads. People submitting links to paywalled articles may have subscriptions; they may not know about the paywall and not have reached the paywall limit yet; they may routinely use paywall evading methods.
bdb 12y ago
Because the content is of high quality.
zaroth 12y ago
The perfect question, and the perfect answer. (Upvotes both)
tinypass 12y ago
Most advanced paywall companies have a feature that enable premium content publishers to make exceptions to the paywall for referral links. Yes, they want subscribers. But they still want to drive traffic from social sharing.

munchbunny 12y ago

It's interesting (at least to me) to think that without the likes of Napster, LimeWire, Kazaa, Grooveshark, Pandora, etc. we would not have gotten to a place where the music industry is willing to play ball at Spotify's level. It's too bad that there was a lot of collateral damage in the process.

tantalor 12y ago
The iTunes Store deserves much of the credit for that shift.
- Animats 12y ago
  True. That, not the iPod, was Apple's real weapon. Apple was able to bring that off because for a reason that's not well understood. Remember, Apple was nowhere in consumer electronics at the time. There were bigger companies with MP3 players. But Apple had an edge. Hollywood, which includes the music industry, is very hierarchical. Steve Jobs was not only CEO of Apple. He was also CEO of Pixar. As the head of a major movie studio, he outranked all music executives. He could deal with them as their superior. That got him in the door. iTunes is now the largest music vendor in the world.
  - e12e 12y ago
    Lets not forget that Sony Music/Entertainment kept hobbling Sony Tech. Which supposedly is why Sony had a few brilliant mp3 players, and then ... nothing. For a few years. It's ludicrous -- the company had the music rights, movie rights, patents and technical know-how -- but just refused accepting the way the trends were going.
- qq66 12y ago
  Itunes got labels to accept $2 per album per user rather than $10. Spotify got labels to accept 2 cents.
qq66 12y ago
Yes, Spotify's value proposition to rights holders is "we're paying you something, it's better than Grooveshark." Another situation where a nominally powerful entity makes a major concession to avoid even higher losses to illegal activity is in tax policy. Many types of taxes are lower than they would be if evasion wasn't a partial substitute for compliance.

siliconc0w 12y ago

The reality is more and more services will switch to the 'client-side-encrypted' model and then you're left trying to stomp out easily replicated and anonymously sharable lists of pointers to legally stored encrypted blobs. Good luck with that. From an ideological point it seems hard to rationalize. We pretty much have an obligation to fix copyright law, build a digital Alexandria, and give it to the world. For Free. All art, movies, music, books, educational materials, everything. Free. We can figure out another way to reward creators without creating artificial marketplaces that demand most go without so the few left have reason to spend. If we're going to fuck up the climate for later generations - I think we can manage to at least figure this out. It's pretty low hanging fruit from a technical perspective.

wmf 12y ago
Once you have the pointer (which includes the decryption key), can't you then send a normal DMCA takedown?
- siliconc0w 12y ago
  The theoretical service uses distributed RAID6 -it detects the downed file - builds it back from distributed parity - and bans your client by hardware UUID. Your last known coordinates gathered from bluetooth/wifi/gps are broadcasted to local library users so they can ask you what's up.
  - wmf 12y ago
    Oh, I thought you were talking about Mega, not science fiction.
    - siliconc0w 12y ago
      Auto repairing distributed storage, client link tracking, and banning devices by hardware ID are actually all pretty common. The bit about the users is a bit hyperbolic but could also easily be done. They could get rewarded with virtual avatar gear to protest on your lawn for messing with their library.

fragsworth 12y ago

I don't see how the judge could rule against Grooveshark. How is Grooveshark any different from Youtube, for instance? The only difference is that the users, on their own, upload much less of their own content on Grooveshark than they do on Youtube. The users are more prone to upload illegal work. But that seems like an arbitrary reason to make this ruling. It's unfortunate that the law can be so vague and ill-defined, and arbitrarily interpreted, usually to the benefit of larger corporations.

wmf 12y ago
Did you see the part of the article where employees of Grooveshark uploaded infringing music?
- flavor8 12y ago
  Youtube weren't significantly better: https://gigaom.com/2010/03/18/viacom-google-youtube-founders-willfully-ignored-infringement/ https://gigaom.com/2010/03/18/viacom-google-youtube-founders...

jediforce 12y ago

Digital Music News has a copy of the decision. Fascinating stuff: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/umg_escape_140929Decision.pdf?638cab http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/u... Also, Paul Resnikoff's take on the story: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/09/29/breaking-grooveshark-found-guilty-massive-copyright-infringement http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/09/29/breakin...

Terr_ 12y ago

Whelp, time to export my playlist-metadata so I can find the songs again: http://groovebackup.com/ http://groovebackup.com/

vorg 12y ago

Content, like code, should be free! We also need a judge somewhere to rule against the shark who hijacked the Groovy codebase and turned it all into something it wasn't originally intended to be - surely that's a copyright infringement. Instead of a specified language with many open source implementations and much documentation as per its creator's vision, it's all being controlled by one corporate with hardly anyone contributing. The project person who makes the announcements is now using his own personal blog instead of the public mailing list to announce new versions, and is trying to replace the open communication channels by soliciting for subscribers to a personal mailout that mostly contains links to tweets.

talmand 12y ago
Content, like code, should be priced at the level the creator wishes it to be while considering the price the market is willing to pay.
- vorg 12y ago
  > [...] while considering the price the market is willing to pay What about considering the cost of enforcement? Content "creators" in Hollywood and CBS et al offload their enforcement costs to U.S. government agencies which are funded by tax-payers, not those "creators" (though in fact those "creators" are really content copiers most of the time).

teachingaway 12y ago

WARNING - the Grooveshark founders were Personally liable for the copyright infringement. This means its not just the Grooveshark company that has to pay the fine, but cofounders Tarantino and Greenberg will need to pay out of their own pockets. From Pages 54-56 of the decision: > Here, defendants Tarantino and Greenberg satisfy the criteria for corporate officer liability. Tarantino and Greenberg are the co-founders of Escape. Tarantino is the Chief Executive Officer and Greenberg is the Chief Technology Officer. Together, Tarantino and Greenberg manage all aspects of Escape’s business. They both directed the infringements at issue in the present litigation by: (1) creating a business model that was based upon the unlicensed sharing of copyright protected material; (2) sending written instructions to the entire company requiring employees to operate “seeding points” so that they could launch the Grooveshark P2P Network; (3) creating the Central Music Library and directing employees to upload files to the Library; (4) deciding to launch the Grooveshark Lite streaming service and instructing Escape employees to upload files for that service; and (5) personally uploading copyrighted protected material, Moreover, they both have a substantial equity interest in Groovershark and thus, directly benefit from the infringing activity.

diafygi 12y ago

Awww, I loved their Programming broadcast. I originally went to groovshark after turntable.fm shut down. Now where should I go for a programmer radio stream?

ue_ 12y ago

When will we stop hobbling ourselves with copyright? It's used to harass people or guarantee profits (or both; the evidence that copyright infringement has an effect on profits is debatable). The failed business models of publishers is not my problem.