Grooveshark Lost Copyright Infringement Case to Majors

A Manhattan District Court found online music service Grooveshark liable for copyright infringement.

The lawsuit filed by the UMG family of record labels in 2011 is not over yet as damages must be determined.  The clincher in this case was the fact that Grooveshark directed its officers and employees to upload unlicensed tracks.  Sounds very similar to the situation in Mp3 Tunes.

With over 5000 tracks uploaded by employees, Grooveshark could not claim a "safe harbor" under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as that provision would only protect Grooveshark if it had no knowledge of the uploads.  The actions of the employees was willful and with knowledge.

We will continue to watch the pending state court litigation over Pre-72 copyrights and pending federal court cases.

Here's the Court's opinion in UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Escape Media Group, Inc., 11 Civ. 8407, SDNY, Sept. 29, 2014.