Grooveshark, a free online-radio music service based in Gainesville, has dealt with major legal troubles throughout the last year.
However, the company recently reached a settlement with Sony/ATV Music Publishing to secure the publishing rights to a massive catalog of music.
Josh Greenberg, co-founder of Grooveshark, said everyone at the company is excited to have come to an agreement with Sony/ATV.
Greenberg said the agreement with Sony/ATV and the recent agreement with EMI music publishing gives Grooveshark rights to distribute more music to its users.
Cody Romano, a 23-year-old UF alumnus and former Grooveshark intern, said during his time with the company they worked hard to avoid breaches in copyright agreements.
“I would say that I’m really happy about (the agreement) because Grooveshark was kind of picked on a little bit on copyright in a way that they didn’t deserve,” Romano said.
The company’s main focus isn’t necessarily to provide popular music to the masses, but to work with independent musicians and allow them to post their music for free, Greenberg said.
Greenberg and Romano compared Grooveshark to YouTube.
“It is most similar to YouTube, in the sense that both services are free to users, and are monetized primarily through ads,” Greenberg said.
A version of this story ran on page 4 on 9/9/2013 under the headline "Grooveshark settles with Sony/ATV Music"
