Grooveshark users can stream any of the 6 million songs in its catalog to their mobile devices — except for Android and iOS users. Photo courtesy Grooveshark.
Popular music-streaming service Grooveshark got yanked from Google’s Android Market over the weekend, and the company isn’t happy about it.
“Google notified us on Saturday that it had removed our app from the Market,” Grooveshark’s Ben Westermann-Clark told Wired.com in an interview, “but frankly, we’re baffled by this. We’re always compliant with DMCA regulations to make sure that we operate within the law and respect the wishes of content owners.”
Grooveshark wasn’t above taking a shot at Android’s relatively open app ecosystem, either. The company issued this statement:
Unlike Apple’s iPhone ecosystem, Android is an open platform, and Google is traditionally a supporter of DMCA-compliant services –- indeed, Google itself relies on the DMCA for the very same protection that Grooveshark does.
Google often champions its Android Market as open when speaking of the platform. Unlike Apple, Android has no vetting process for the apps that are submitted to the market. However, Google has removed apps from the market and even remotely deleted them from customers’ phones when it’s found apps that misrepresent themselves or that could be malicious.
Grooveshark remains in the dark as to exactly why it got ousted. All it knows is that the Recording Industry Association of America, a copyright watchdog and lobbying group, was involved.
“We haven’t received any specific information from Google about what in the developers’ terms of service, exactly, we need to address to be readmitted to the marketplace — only that Google received a letter of complaint from the RIAA,” the company said in a statement.
Wired.com’s request for comment from the RIAA was not returned.
Google isn’t going into specifics. “We remove apps from Android Market that violate our policies,” a Google spokesperson told Wired.com.
Google’s removal of the app comes several months after Apple’s expulsion of Grooveshark from its App Store for iPhones and iPads. “As an IP holder ourselves, we understand the importance of protecting intellectual property,” Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told Wired.com in August. “Due to objections by rights-holders, the Grooveshark app has been removed until resolution is reached by both parties.” The removal was prompted by Universal Music Group U.K.’s takedown request.
Grooveshark isn’t a stranger to litigation. EMI was engaged in a copyright-infringement lawsuit with Grooveshark in 2009, but the record company dropped the charges after agreeing to a licensing deal with the music service.
Much like Europe’s Spotify, the Gainsville, Florida-based Grooveshark is a “freemium” (free trial period with an eventual $9 monthly fee to continue) streaming-music service for mobile, It lets you play any tracks hosted in its catalog of over 6 million songs. The service is also accessible through its web interface for free.
Grooveshark differs from competing apps like Pandora or Rdio in that it’s user-sourced. In other words, it’s like a YouTube for music.
And, says Westermann-Clark, “like YouTube, Grooveshark pulls content when copyright owners come in and ask for it.”
Grooveshark remains available for download on RIM’s BlackBerry App World store and HP’s webOS store. The app can still be loaded onto your iOS device — if you jailbreak your phone.
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