Grooveshark to launch above-board radio app

Grooveshark, the US-based music streaming service which spent much of its term in and out of the courtroom on copyright charges, is launching a digital radio app.

In what it’s calling its “first compliant app”, Grooveshark will launch the DMCA-yielding app in January (WSJ), charging users 99c a month for commercial-free streaming and paying for licensing through digital performance rights organisation SoundExchange.

Its use of SoundExchange is crucial; because it collects and distributes royalties on the behalf of sound recording copyright owners using a statutory license, Grooveshark won’t need to ink separate license deals with record labels in the US. It will however have to enter negotiations from publishers and labels if it wants to launch in other countries and will need to obtain licenses from US PROs ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. The last of which may be difficult to obtain as it doesn’t have a consent decree agreement with the US government.

In September a federal judge in New York ended a four-year legal battle between Grooveshark and Universal Music by ruling that it did infringe on over 100,000 of Universal Music’s copyrights. The penalties for which have not been set. In the past, Grooveshark has also been embroiled in legal battles with EMI and Sony/ATV pertaining to operating without copyright licenses.

This isn’t the first time Grooveshark has tried to reinvent itself, nor is it its first foray into radio. In 2011, six years after its closing, it gave its website an overhaul and integrated social networking features for what its Creative Director at the time John Ashenden said was: “the first real push from Grooveshark to connect music fans with music fans.” And in April last year it launched user-created radio feature Broadcast, which included a chat function which realised Ashenden’s vision of connecting users.

The above-board service is called Broadcasts; essentially it’s a more scaled-down app version of Broadcast, letting listeners text chat each other via the app and offering access to user-created radio stations.