Grooveshark launched a mobile-streaming website Wednesday to bypass the Google and Apple app stores after a series of disagreements with media companies.
Music-streaming business Grooveshark, based in Gainesville and founded by two former UF students, has had its share of roadblocks in the past few years, from pending lawsuits to being booted out of Apple’s app store.
The company lost its Google app last week with little public explanation. Android users can download the app through Grooveshark’s website.
Grooveshark announced its new mobile option, html5.grooveshark.com, Wednesday afternoon with little mention of the controversy.
“For the first time ever, Grooveshark’s full feature set is available on any device with a Web browser without being bounded by the limitations of Adobe Flash,” co-founder Sam Tarantino said in a news release.
The company is facing multiple lawsuits from big names in the music industry. Universal Music Group sued Grooveshark’s parent company, Escape Media Group, in 2010 for illegally reproducing and distributing songs from Universal’s pre-1972 catalog, according to Alligator archives.
It was sued again by Universal Music Group in 2011 for copyright infringement.
The Grooveshark app was taken out of both the Apple and Google app stores last year. The company’s Apple app has yet to reappear, although Grooveshark’s website gives instructions how to download the iPhone app if the phone is jailbroken.
Grooveshark spokeswoman Danika Azzarelli said the company is working with Google to get its app back on the Android market.
“Grooveshark as an app is not a copyright infringement, and Google should recognize through their experience with YouTube that our actual partner artists and labels are suffering every day our app is down,” according to the company’s statement.
Google’s press center did not reply to phone calls and emails requesting comment.
Grooveshark reached 1 million users in 2009 and now has more than 30 million users.
Tarantino and Josh Greenberg came up with the idea to start the company while Tarantino was studying economics at UF and Greenberg was studying business. They launched the business in 2007.
The company offers 15 million songs on its website.
Other media outlets like YouTube and Pandora use a similar method of the Web programming language known as HTML5 streaming on their mobile phone websites. However, these companies have apps to accompany their websites.
With this new outlet, Grooveshark will circumvent the need for an app.
“The Grooveshark universe now is truly limitless to the customer and the artist,” Tarantino said in the press release.
