Grooveshark Shutters in Settlement With Sony, UMG, WMG

Music-sharing service Grooveshark shut down Thursday after parent company Empire Media reached a settlement with Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group (UMG) and Warner Music Group (WMG) to end the labels’ years-long legal battle in U.S. District Court in New York over claims that Grooveshark knowingly facilitated copyright infringement (see reports in the Nov. 23, 2011, and Dec. 22, 2011, issues). “We started out nearly ten years ago with the goal of helping fans share and discover music,” Grooveshark said in a statement. “Despite best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service. That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation.” Grooveshark agreed as part of its shutdown to “wipe clean all the data on our servers and hand over ownership of this website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights.” Empire Media didn’t disclose other details about its settlement with Sony, UMG and WMG. U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa had issued a court order allowing the jury to award up to a maximum of $150,000 in damages for each of the almost 5,000 songs the labels claimed Grooveshark had infringed.