Will Internet Music Streaming Survive? Part 2

With Pandora on shaky ground because of financial sustainability issues, one might turn to Grove shark for streaming music online. If you are not familiar with Groveshark, music is uploaded by users and then allows users to select it by artist or song and add it to a playlist which streams to your computer. Like Pandora has been widely successful, and has grown 500% since 2010 with 30 million active users, and has grown to have a major influence in online music streaming.

Some might say that this is the next best thing since Napster, or is it. On January 4, 2012, EMI music Publishing, the record label that Groveshark has is music licensing from. They filed claiming that Groveshark has not paid a signal royalty payment since 2009. There are also currently lawsuits from the three other major record labels. This may be the beginning of the end for Groveshark in offering free streaming without commercials, or some other revenue model. A statement made by Groveshark said: “This is a contract dispute that we expect to resolve”. Whether it is a contract dispute, or a true copyright infringement, the music belongs to someone and it can’t be distributed free of charge without some revenue model in place like Pandora.