Streaming Service Grooveshark Gets Into Events

Grooveshark has always been one of the more interesting music streaming services in that it's always been a tiny outsider trying to stay competitive with the deep pockets of the industry. Starting as an alternative download service to iTunes in 2007, the company couldn't get much traction from the major record labels as far as licensing agreements. This lead to the service morphing into a more radio-like model that quickly ran afoul of a number of record labels, since licensing agreements were still not in place.

The company has since lost lawsuits filed by the major labels and even had its Facebook compatibility features pulled from its website and its Android app removed by Google.

None of this has stopped Grooveshark from trying new things though, and the latest is getting into events with Grooveshark Presents, a crowdsourced concert initiative that attempts to use the company's streaming data to help artists and promoters to better plan events.

The first concert occured on November 10th in Gainesville, Florida (where Grooveshark's corporate offices reside) with artists Autograf, Happy Accidents, and Bells & Robes.

Grooveshark.com currently calls itself a "Virtual DJ" allowing the user to broadcast a playlist, which is a great idea, except for the fact that artists and labels claim they're not being paid.

While Grooveshark is appealing its loses in court, it continues to try to stay relevant. The fact that it has 30 million monthly users is pretty impressive, but it still remains to be seen whether this new niche will ultimately be enough to keep the company alive over the long term in the face of continuing industry pressure.

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