Grooveshark Bites Back: We’ll Fight Universal in Court, Not The Press
torrentfreak.com
torrentfreak.com
This part doesn't quite make sense to me. Besides being news to me that this is their business model, how could it possibly be that UMG is willing to pay more for the data about a song play than they charge for that play?
If you are discomfited by it, take comfort knowing that the only reason they get money for it is they are selling the amalgamation of what thousands (millions?) of listeners chose; from the sound of it, you are going to be completely invisible among the masses.
For $5, I'll claim that I watched the CEO of Grooveshark waterboard an orphan while listening to a song he didn't own.
I'm willing to support just about anyone who is taking on the record labels, but don't claim you won't fight Universal in the press right after doing so and scolding your opponents for doing so as well. That's just hypocritical.
Pardon the pessimism, but I don't recall any online music service that didn't negotiate with the labels first surviving these lawsuits. Though maybe I am forgetting one that is still around and going strong?
Now who's the bully?
Also the wild west that YouTube was is no longer, as they pay they labels. Maybe Grooveshark won't go the way of all the other unlicensed music services & they'll negotiate the proper licenses to remain in business?
If that happens their model will be like Spotify and the others(pay monthly fee for mobile access). Though will it's users stick around or jump ship to what service I'm not sure? I don't know of any other Grooveshark like services as the press only covers Spotify, MOG and Rdio these days.
Further the majority (Grooveshark's users/visitors) are there to listen to the label's music not the unknowns. Now if the unknowns are really good then they'll get a record deal because they want to be heard by as many as possible (become famous).
Just like us entrepreneurs wisely seek out investment to grow our businesses artist do the same with the labels. Some artists could say "I hate the labels they will never sign me!" Though once that artist gets a following and a taste for money/fame they'll change their mind! They'd be foolish not to!
But that is, of course, the fear of Grooveshark. The masses come to hear Lady Gaga's latest single, but they just might stumble upon an independent that they enjoy while they are there. That discovery leads to wanting to find more, and eventually the major labels, like in video today, become even less relevant. Grooveshark has already started promoting bands I have never heard of, and I'll usually give them a chance when I am there.
Both YouTube and GrooveShark bet that they'd be able to (quasi-illegally) host major production content without the owners' consent until some derivative (in YouTube's case, raw audience combined with ad revenue and in GrooveShark's case apparently metrics) gave them enough value and/or capital to strike deals with legitimate content owners.
YouTube won; they were able to push enough traffic to entice labels into partnering with them for a revenue-generating service (VEVO), and were subsequently able to begin enforcing the DMCA aggressively via automated tooling combined with an easy takedown process for labels.
I think GrooveShark are about to lose. So far, labels seem less interested in making deals with them than in destroying them, and I highly doubt they have enough legitimate content to survive. They didn't make it past the "host infringing content for long enough to generate value" inflection point quickly enough.
It's also worth noting that it's possible to host a much wider variety of independent / user-generated content which is actually interesting on a "video site" than a "music site." "Video" encompasses an incredible range of content (including music!), while "music" is a single content type with a much narrower range of producers. Many more people have cute kids, athletic talent, cool cars, funny pets, and so on than have musical talent.
It's like no one told them you don't have to exactly copy the old school radio advertising model.
(Yes, I can have it pull music from iTunes, but then I'm having to manage two separate libraries, one of which could disappear overnight as a result of a court ruling. The odds of that happening are greater than all of my backups suddenly vanishing.)
Grooveshark has me as a customer for life whether the labels want want to play nice with them or not. The only alternatives we have are Rdio, Slacker, and maybe a couple of others. None of them are nearly as good as Grooveshark. Grooveshark's biggest drawback is having to jailbreak to get their iOS app, and that's not something they have control over. Major points to them for developing it anyway for a smaller jailbreak audience.