[j2d2j2d2]

The DMCA provides the clear guidelines you're referring to. Grooveshark also falls back to the DMCA and their willingness to comply as evidence that they are legal.

I think the biggest issue for music startups (disclaimer: I used to work for one) is probably that the startups that try to do it legally and correctly are still competing against the ones that border on being illegal, or are straight-up illegal. Users don't care, but startups might get sued.

All of that aside, I agree that Grooveshark has built a great product. But I'd be kidding myself if I didn't also say the first song I searched for was Metallica and I got a massive list of songs I could listen to. I'm sure they wouldn't be happy.

[chrislomax]

The only thing I find odd about Grooveshark is the same tune but displayed in different ways. Almost like a group of people have just uploaded their personal collection. It does feel a little amature in that respect.

I think its hard to make an unbaised decision on the company and how I feel about this take down decision because I do not know the complete inner workings, only what Grooveshark tell us. They could tell us they are paying fees when they are clearly not, they could say all royalties are being honoured, when again they could not be.

It's all assumption led but I know that whatever is happening is not good for the end user. I was going to pay for their mobile version and I didn't question the legality of it either. To the average user, all this messing around means that when Google or Apple release their own product then every "normal" user will jump ship for it because they know it's there to stay rather than being worried it will be dropped at any point. The end user doesn't generally have any loyalty, they just want to listen to music.