So I just recently started questioning where websites like Grooveshark get their license from, and what type of license it is. I only question this because places like Pandora limit the amount of songs you can listen to or skip per hour, but not with this.

It seems to me that they get away with it the same way youtube does, they're not actually giving out the mp3, you have to go to the site and listen to it through the flash player.

Youtube doesn't 'get away' with anything. Companies who care regularly take down videos with copyrighted material.

Yeah, but they also cannot be sued for it, I guess youtube is a bad example, I'm thinking more like imeem, it seems that as long as you embed the song in a way that stops the listener from downloading the straight up mp3, it's fine to host.

omg this site is amazing.
pandora/yahoo radio does it through the flash player too, so no.

I really don't see how they don't have a skip lit or anything. The only thing I can guess is these are user uploaded songs, and not endorsed by the RIAA

If this can find similar music I like and add it to a continuous playlist, like pandora does so well, I'm dumping pandora.

If you listen to it, you have already downloaded it. >.>

Since when did streaming become downloading??

It has to download it to play it. I've ripped lots of stuff from websites like that...

^_-??? Are you sure? sites like www.di.fm doesn't have you DL it. It downloads a 'playlist' file, but that's it.. It streams it through Windows Media Player, Winamp or Realplayer.

How would that be dling the songs? (Just curious)

Usually a file is saved somewhere and that is what the player is playing from. I don't know about things like streaming radio stations and such...

How does that refute what I said?


Agreed, however, I think that the music industry assumes the majority of people are too stupid to be able to get it if you embed it in some sort of flash or stream it, and they're right in thinking so.

I'm fairly sure artists have to authorise on Last.FM, 'cause IIRC you can't listen to the Beatles.

From anything that is a live stream, it isn't likely that it is being saved to the hard drive at all, since the stream itself isn't an actual file. There are still ways to capture it, but then the program also has to deal with making it into a usable file.

srsly falkoner?


They both only stream the music yet only 1 get's unlimited skips. Thus, the fact that it's streaming is not enough.

Most likely they do that because of their own bandwidth, not because any law says so

No, Pandora explicitly states the labels will only let them stream their music for free if the user is only allowed so many skips. Do I need to source this or can you just take my word for it?

I will flame you if you make me.

I believe the question is about licenses, not about whether you can download a stream audio file...

Watch how groove shark loads the song. It fetches pieces 14 seconds at a time(its easier to observe on a lower bandwidth). Maybe taking sections of the song from separate sites gets around licensing laws.

(I know that for movies and such, you can take 30 seconds or less and all you have to do is site the artist, so maybe taking 14 seconds or less can work around internet playback laws??)