As you may have heard, online music streaming service Grooveshark made headlines after Google booted its Android app from the Android Market. Google hasn’t revealed much insight into why the app was pulled but has told reporters that Grooveshark violates its “policies”. CNET reported that sources said top music labels accused the service of violating copyright law. Now Groovershark is confirming to us that Google received a letter of complain from the RIAA (The Recording Industry Association of America is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry), and that is one of the reasons behind why the app was pulled.
Here’s the statement from Grooveshark:
It is our full intent to get Grooveshark for Android back into the Android Marketplace, and we haven’t received any specific information from Google about what in the developers’ terms of service, exactly, we need to address to be re-admitted to the marketplace–only that Google received a letter of complaint from the RIAA.
As a user-sourced service, like YouTube, Grooveshark complies speedily with all DMCA requests to make sure that we operate within the law and respect the wishes of content owners. 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.
Grooveshark works night and day to develop new successes in the music industry, as well as pay the many content partners with whom we work. The current unavailability of our app is taking money from the thousands of hard-working labels, artists, and content partners who benefit from a share of Grooveshark’s mobile subscription revenue. We look forward to working with Google to get our app reinstated.
For Grooveshark, this is sort of like deja vu. Last year, Apple yanked the app from the App Store after it received a complaint from Universal Music Group UK about the app. The company has also been embroiled in legal battles with EMI over copyright infringement.