Grooveshark....I'm not too convinced.

by kcoppock [ http://www.cnet.com/profiles/kcoppock/ ]

October 7, 2007

Okay, so I got my registration confirmation from Grooveshark today, and so far I'm extremely skeptical of how this can possibly work legally. First, I read through the EULA (yeah, I actually read it), and one of the things you agree to is that you will not have any content from unsupported labels in your shared folder for Grooveshark, and it provides a link to a list of signed labels that goes to a 404 Page Not Found. Another interesting paragraph I found in the TOS was this:

"You hereby indemnify and hold harmless, and upon EMG's request, defend, EMG its affiliates (and their respective directors, officers and employees) from and against any and all losses, liabilities, damages, costs or expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees and costs) arising out of any claim, action, or proceeding brought by a third party based on: ...(ii) any allegation that any User Content provided, uploaded, syndicated, linked to or authorized by or on behalf of you hereunder or EMG's or any User's use thereof violates or infringes the rights of another party. You will reimburse EMG and its affiliates on demand for any actual payments made in resolution of any liability or claim that is subject to indemnification under this Section 14, provided that EMG obtains your written consent prior to making such payments, such consent not to be unreasonably withheld, delayed or conditioned. EMG shall promptly notify you of any such claim, and you shall assume control of the defense of such claim upon EMG's request. EMG shall have the right, at its expense, to participate in the defense thereof under your direction."

In the podcast interview, wasn't it claimed that they wouldn't hold their users liable for issues like this?

So once I actually make it to the web page, I'm greeted with the fairly well-designed, yet generically Web2.0 web page, with a greeting in the corner of the page from "Josh". At this point, I'm sorry, I know this was just satire (surely), but his profile picture is a mock of Tom from MySpace's notorious photo. I just found that annoying, honestly.

So I open the Grooveshark application, and start adding folders to monitor, and the songs show up on my Grooveshark page. A lot of the tags, I noticed, imported improperly, and I attempted to make changes to them, but apparently all changes have to be approved first.

The interface then, I'd say gets about a 3.5/5, I wasn't too impressed, but my real issues with it are that I just see 'lawsuit' spelled all over it.

Firstly, there is NO filtering on their part to remove material from unsigned labels. I went to my profile, and ALL of my music, regardless of the label, was available to be streamed and purchased for $0.99. I KNOW the RIAA cannot be okay with this.

Another problem I had with it is that there is the possibility of downloading a bad file, but still having to pay for it. Since it's P2P, you're downloading it from another person's computer. There's no method to filter through files like that yet either.

I realize it's still in beta, but unless I'm missing something here, I think they're going to have major legal hurdles to jump before this will get off the ground.

5:55 AM PDT

Grooveshark Indemnification, Etc...

by jamesd78 [ http://www.cnet.com/profiles/jamesd78/ ]

October 8, 2007

First allow me to introduce myself. My name is James Davis, and I am part of the Grooveshark executive team.

Now to your concerns:

Yes, our CEO, Sam Tarantino, did say that Grooveshark will indemnify its users. Obviously this is not what the current EULA says. This is because the current EULA was written in March before we had figured out how to handle the selling of unlicensed tracks on our system. The new EULA addresses the issue of user indemnification. The reason the new EULA isn't up yet basically comes down to lawyers. More specifically, our lawyers. They're going through it and making sure all the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed. And of course we're paying them by the hour so they're taking their sweet time. But don't worry, we've got you guys covered. You will not be held liable.

Yes the Josh/Tom picture is cheesy. We had way to much time on our hands that day and it will be changed one day. The thing is, the only other picture we had of Josh was a "Glamour Shots by Deb," picture that can be found on our about page. So we picked cheesy over really cheesy.

Yes the overall design and interface needs work but that's why it's a beta. You give it a 3.5/5, our designers actually give it a 3/5 at best (Yes, they're self hating designers). They've already started working on the new design based on feedback like yours. So please bare with us.

As far as the rest of your points...We're working on them. There's actually people at our office working on some part of Grooveshark round the clock, every day of the week. We value the feedback we get from our users both positive and negative. It helps us make Grooveshark better, so please keep it coming.

If anyone has any questions or even ideas, please feel free to contact me at james.davis@grooveshark.com.

James

12:59 AM PDT

Gooveshark Liability Indemnification

by gerardwhite [ http://www.cnet.com/profiles/gerardwhite/ ]

October 9, 2007

Kcoppock.
Maybe ?Remove from Friends? is good advice. You raised valid points which James has avoided answering. Where are the list of signed artists and labels? ?404 Page Not Found? does not a list of signed artists and labels make.

Indemnity, if Grooveshark have succeeded where Yahoo, Microsoft, i-tunes, e-music and many more have failed; making sense of copyright laws, getting the record industry to agree, and allowing the legal sale and re-sale of copyrighted media in a non DRM format, that is very significant. Users who are being induced to offer their collections for re-sale, need to be made aware of this agreement and who has signed up to it.

James tells us that shark lawyers are ?making sure all the I?s are dotted and the T?s crossed?, but hey, why are users being offered inducements to commit copyright theft before these I?s & T?s in the T&C?s have been dotted and crossed?
I?m not convinced and James?s response gives more cause for concern. Are we allowed to know at least which tracks are licensed and how Grooveshark handles unlicensed content?

Until the EULA is updated, unless James can prove otherwise, users are violating copyright when copyrighted assets are offered for sale without the copyright owners permission and users are open to prosecution by the RIAA/IFPI. The question is: Will the RIAA/IFPI do anything about it?

In March Grooveshark had not figured out how to handle unlicensed music, then it follows that not all music on Grooveshark is licensed, yet, Grooveshark accepts all music and offers it for sale. Something doesn?t add up here.

With the RIAA in their stride having effectively justified their heavy handed approach to file sharers, it would be helpful if Grooveshark were to publish independent confirmation from the RIAA/IFPI that Grooveshark users will not be prosecuted.

I am not convinced that Grooveshark is not an RIAA/IFPI honey trap.

James, you need to come clean and give us some straight answers;
Which artists and which labels have signed?
How does Grooveshark handle unlicensed music?
What has been the response from the RIAA to Grooveshark?
How do users benefit from your solution to handling unlicensed music?

2:57 AM PDT

Good points!

by kcoppock

October 9, 2007

Although I feel wishy washy now, it's probably a good point to err on the side of caution for now.

However, I would think if this were a "RIAA/IFPI honey trap", they'd have an awfully hard time pressing charges against any user, considering all those who represent it have represented it as completely legitimate, but I'm no lawyer, so I could totally be wrong.

The BOLcast today also brought up the interesting concern that even things such as podcasts are up for SALE.

Yes james, more information would probably be good. ESPECIALLY that alleged Signed Labels List.

3:13 AM PDT

Straight answers

by jamesd78

October 9, 2007

Gerard,

I apologize for not giving complete enough answers in the previous post. So here they are:

1.Which labels and artists have signed?

Here's the link: http://www.grooveshark.com/labelslist/
We've signed about 70 or so artists, so this list does need to be updated a bit.

2. How does Grooveshark handle unlicensed music?

All revenue (Grooveshark does not retain any profit from these revenues) from music sold on Grooveshark goes into an escrow account and remains there until an agreement can be reached between Grooveshark and the copyright holder.

We also have a take-down policy which means if a copyright holder wishes, we will take down their content from our site.

3. What has been the response from the RIAA regarding Grooveshark?

So far we've done our best to avoid stepping on anyone's toes, especially the RIAA. As far as their take on Grooveshark? The Miami Herald called to ask that exact question and the RIAA had no comment, so your guess is as good as ours.

I guess that answer leads to the other question of are we a RIAA trap?

That's like saying Biggie and 2pac are alive and well and live in a condo together on some remote island with Elvis. Come on man, give us a little credit.

4. How do users benefit from our solution of handling unlicensed music?

Users benefit by Grooveshark having a more complete library for them to choose from. But quite honestly, the people who really benefit are the copyright holders. We're taking content that's already being downloaded on illegal networks like limewire and are generating revenue for the copyright holders. Revenue that before Grooveshark didn't exist.

You also mentioned that we are encouraging people to illegally download music. I like to think people are not only smarter than that, but have better things to do. Just because my Acura can do 140mph doesn't mean Acura is encouraging me to speed.

Gerard,...In the end, it will all come out in the wash. Whether the end result is good or bad for Grooveshark, myself along with the other 43 people who work here like to think that what we're doing here is good and just. We know there are people who will never believe or trust us, but it's the ones who do that make what we're doing worthwhile.

I hope these answers were straight enough.

4:06 AM PDT