Popular music streaming site Grooveshark had somehow managed to offer thousands of free songs ranging from obscure Japanese bands to platinum-selling superstars, but the site’s recurring legal problems finally caught up with it. In a letter that sounds like something a lawyer wrote, Grooveshark has announced that it is shutting down.

“We started out nearly ten years ago with the goal of helping fans share and discover music,” the letter says. “But despite [the] best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service.

“That was wrong. We apologize. Without Reservation.”

Unlike streaming services like Pandora, which plays a semi-random assortment of songs like a radio station, or Spotify, which pays for licences using ad revenue and paid subscriptions, Grooveshark was entirely free and allowed users to search for a song and listen to it immediately. Users could listen to entire albums without paying a cent or listening to a single ad.

“As part of a settlement agreement with the major record companies,” Grooveshark writes; “We have agreed to cease operations immediately, wipe clean all of the record companies’ copyrighted works and hand over ownership of this website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights.”

“An important victory for artists”

Grooveshark’s farewell letter pointed to a site run by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as a place to find “a licensed service that compensates artists and other rights holders.”

While many Grooveshark users are upset by the news, few seem particularly surprised.

Grooveshark has skated by under a safe harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which protects content hosts from legal action as long as they comply with takedown requests from rights holders.

But the company was a frequent target of lawsuits that alleged that the company not only allowed illegal content to remain, but its own employees even uploaded some of it.

“This is an important victory for artists and the entire music industry,” said a statement by the RIAA. “For too long, Grooveshark built its business without properly compensating the artists, songwriters and everyone else who makes great music possible. This settlement ends a major source of infringing activity.”

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