Popular music streaming service Grooveshark has shut down, leaving only a heartfelt message of apology on a dark gray screen on their homepage – but a new Grooveshark has surfaced elsewhere on the Internet boasting nearly all the content the original site offered.
“Despite best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes,” the message reads on Grooveshark.com. “We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service. That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation.”
The message, dated April 30 and addressed to “music fans,” states that as part of a settlement with major music companies, the company is closing down the site and handing over ownership of it and its related apps and intellectual property.
It also suggests that music lovers use a licensed service that pays artists and other people have rights to the music.
Then Tuesday, a new website popped up with the domain name .io, rather than .com, which is the top-level domain for the British Indian Ocean Territory.
The anonymous person who started the new site claimed to have backed up 90 percent of the Grooveshark library, but the new version of the site is missing many of the social and playlist functions that made the original popular. The site appears to be a rebranded version of an existing website called MP3Juices.se, or at least very similar to it.
The new site includes information for people who believe one of the site’s sources has infringed upon their intellectual rights, plus the following disclaimer:
It also includes on its “Terms of use” page the term that you will only download a song to preview it, then you’ll delete it, and if you liked it, you’ll buy the song or album.
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