Google CEO Is Tired of Rivals, Laws, Wants to Start His Own Country - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/05/15/larry_page_io_keynote_google_ceo_blasts_microsoft_oracle_laws_and_the_media.html <comment><USER3> A few random thoughts:

* "he left out the part where Google recently sent Microsoft a cease-and-desist letter demanding that it remove the YouTube app from its Windows Phones" has nothing to do with interoperating, but rather Microsoft not showing ads (among other infractions).

* "Mozilla guy" is Dan Buchner (<https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dandonkulous>), who's working with Google on web components. [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2cpEUw1...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2cpEUw1o24cJ:https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/05/speed-up-app-development-with-x-tag-and-web-components/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

Larry gave an impressive non-answer to the relatively basic question ("Hey, any chance web technologies will replace Java on Android?"), and went off on quite the interesting tangent about just about everything.

I can only assume he's been wanting to say these things for a while, and jumped on basically the first open ended question he got. I bet the Google PR team was freaking out a bit.

<comment><USER4> >has nothing to do with interoperating, but rather Microsoft not showing ads (among other infractions).

Says who? Microsoft offered to show ads but Google refuses to give them access to the API since almost 3 years.

Perhaps you haven't read this story because Google fanboys on HN are flagging it heavily to keep HN readers like you in the dark.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5715889>

<comment><USER5> You realize that if ads are required by the TOS, but you don't have the ability to include ads, that it doesn't mean it's just okay to ignore the TOS and distribute the app anyway?

Whether it's fair or not for Google to not provide a way to include ads is a different argument entirely. It sounds like it's just not even technically legal for MS to distribute their YouTube app in its current state.

<comment><USER6> >You realize that if ads are required by the TOS, but you don't have the ability to include ads, that it doesn't mean it's just okay to ignore the TOS and distribute the app anyway?

Microsoft developers didn't have to read and accept the TOS to access Youtube videos. Perhaps they're trying the legal precedent of the equivalent of 'clean room reverse engineering".

Is it legal for Mozilla to distribute Adblock on their site which is a program that disables Youtube and Google ads and hurts content creators?

Would Mozilla be forced to remove it from <https://addons.mozilla.org> if Google sends a C&D to them?

>It sounds like it's just not even technically legal for MS to distribute their YouTube app in its current state.

So what? Google can sue them for billions and win and stop all Windows Phone users from easy access to YouTube videos despite their stated mission of "Organize the world's information and make it accessible to everyone".

Not sure why you're so worried about Microsoft's finances, they have 75 billion in the bank and some pretty good lawyers. No wonder they snuck in a "download video" button too. The WP Youtube app is the best Youtube app on mobile platforms because of that.

<comment><USER5> Nothing you said is actually a justification for MS's actions.

> Is it legal for Mozilla to distribute Adblock on their site which is a > program that disables Youtube and Google ads and hurts content creators?

Yes. This is because AdBlock is a service that modifies the way your own browser - your property - works. It is not in itself a service that pulls YouTube content from YouTube.

For this same reason, it is available even in the Chrome Web Store itself.

I don't understand how you can say "so what" to pointing out that one of these companies is acting illegally, and expect to be taken seriously.

Also I think you meant to say "Google" in your last sentence instead of "Microsoft"? I can't tell and it doesn't seem to make sense otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Jesus, that was some serious word-twisting. It was an impromptu response and IMO they should be weighed with the spirit more than the words in mind.

Given the benefit of doubt, I can totally see where Larry was coming from. In fact it seemed bold and even slightly refreshing to hear him convey his thoughts without the usual restrictions. Industry wide conversations start these ways and examination of a problem is crucial before we can attempt to solve it.

<comment><USER8> /agreed

This is one of the most breathtaking biased pieces I've seen in a very long time. This guy really, really doesn't like Google. Or maybe just Larry Page.

Edit:

By the same writer:

In the same vein as this "story", a bizarre caption in a "story" covering Eric Schmidt's Guardian op-ed suggesting civilian drones are a bad idea:

"Google CEO Eric Schmidt knows what's best for us."

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/15/ban_civil...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/15/ban_civilian_drones_google_ceo_eric_schmidt_cites_privacy_security_risks.html)

I glanced through the first 10 pages of his other stories on Slate. They aren't all rabidly anti-Google. Though he does seem to hold the _founders_ of Google in special disdain for some reason.

Now I'm more inclined to think this is simple link-baiting, not bias. He'll say anything for the clicks. Which seems like a common trend on Slate these days. I remember the days when Slate had some really excellent original journalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why the negative slant in this article?

Personally I want more folks to spread ideas similar to Larry's. (Whether he meant it or not is impossible to know of course)

<comment><USER10> I don't have a very positive view of Google, but it was obvious that article was written solely to be a headline grabber.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "To recap, Page criticized Microsoft for treating Google as a rival, blasted Oracle for caring too much about money, and then whined about everyone being so negative. Heck, if it weren't for those other companies standing in the way, Google would have probably already solved world hunger."

I mean, pretty much this (assuming the above was facetious). The Youtube thing really made me lose a lot of hope in Google as a company. Even though, I feel that we've made great strides in the past 10 years, I can't help but be reminded that:

1) I have people on my Facebook that I can't add to my phone without some ridiculous hacks (that essentially scrape FB, breaking the TOS) - <USER2> Facebook

2) I can't use GMail in the vanilla mail app on my touchscreen W8 laptop - thanks Google

3) I can't have a Metro Chrome app - thanks Google

4) My sister can't have almost anything (native) Google-related on her ARM- based W8RT tablet - thanks Microsoft

5) I can't have a distro-agnostic framework that "just works" for downloading/updating/installing/uninstalling Linux packages - thanks FOSS infighting cliques

6) I don't have full control over my Android/Apple phone, over my Android/Apple/Windows tablet, (and soon over my Google glass) unless I root said devices

This is simply a consumer-space extension of the legal battles that these companies are so fond of (see Samsung vs. Apple). The sad part is, it's probably going to get worse before it gets better. Oh, well.. c'est la vie.

<comment><USER12> 2 - Gmail supports SMTP and IMAP, so any mail client should work. The top hit for [windows 8 gmail] is [http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-configure-mail-in- windows-8...](http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-configure-mail-in- windows-8-gmail-hotmail-outlook-yahoo/) , which indicates that the Windows 8 mail app has an icon specifically for configuring Gmail accounts.

3 - According to [http://blog.chromium.org/2012/06/try-chrome-in-metro- mode.ht...](http://blog.chromium.org/2012/06/try-chrome-in-metro-mode.html) , Chrome has supported Metro since June 2012 when running on a non-RT version of Windows. Computers running Windows 8 RT can't run any browser in Metro mode (see [http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/05/09/windows-on-arm- users...](http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/05/09/windows-on-arm-users-need- browser-choice-too/) ), so it's not like Google has a choice there.

6 - To root a device means to gain full control over it. It's not obvious how you could have full control over your phone without rooting it.

<comment><USER13> > It's not obvious how you could have full control over your phone without > rooting it.

It could come with root access enabled, just like your computer does.

<comment><USER12> From a security and reliability perspective, having root enabled by default is a terrible idea. The arms race between OS vendors and malware developers means that defaulting root to disabled is both desirable and inevitable.

Only root can install malware into the kernel or BIOS. Only root can pull keys and passwords out of /dev/mem. Only root can damage an installation beyond the ability to factory reset.

I eagerly await the day when every major OS will require jumping over some basic hurdle (e.g. rebooting into single-user mode and running /sbin/root-me- harder) before enabling root access, because that will eliminate entire categories of security risks from consumer-oriented computing.

<comment><USER14> Which of these arguments does not apply to computers?

<comment><USER12> I don't understand your question. Just so it's clear, I consider smartphones and tablets to be computers also, and I hope that one day all computers (desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, watches, goggles, Borg implants) come with root-equivalent access disabled by default.

<comment><USER14> Fair enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Considering how big of a lie Google's "Don't do evil" motto has become, are we supposed to believe that Page really wants to solve problems and make progress by cooperating with other companies?

You have to have consumed quite a bit of the "Goolaid" to be able to take his ramblings seriously.

<comment><USER16> _Considering how big of a lie Google's "Don't do evil" motto_

Genuinely curious here, what are the things that google has done that people think are evil? Maybe as a follow-up, what corporations do you think make a greater positive impact than google?

<comment><USER17> Google's evil activity cost them half BILLION dollars when a gov't sting uncovered it: <http://bit.ly/14osMvb>

<comment><USER18> I'm hesitant to call anything evil just for being caught in the cross-hairs of the drug laws in the US.

<comment><USER15> I'm sorry if this comes across as rude, but... did you read the god damn article? _Google actively helped scammers sell fake pharmaceuticals._ How is that not the definition of evil?

<comment><USER18> Yes, I read the article. Did you? The sting wasn't to catch Google helping scammers, but to catch Google knowingly helping people sell illicit drugs.

<comment><USER15> I guess I don't see the distinction you are trying to make. Google representatives helped Whitetaker sell illegal, often fake drugs, often times giving him feedback on how he could circumvent the company's own policies and various detection algorithms. In other words, Google acted in an evil manner.

<comment><USER18> > I guess I don't see the distinction you are trying to make.

I already told you: "I'm hesitant to call anything evil just for being caught in the cross-hairs of the drug laws in the US." If you think that violating the drugs laws (or helping someone to do so) in the US is evil, then we have a fundamental disagreement.

From my reading of the article, the sting wasn't to find out if Google was knowingly helping scams---just that they were knowingly helping someone sell illegal drugs.

<comment><USER15> The problem is not that the drugs were illegal. The problem was that they were fake. That is evil. Furthermore, scamming people is evil as well, since it involves taking advantage of them.

<comment><USER18> > The problem is not that the drugs were illegal.

Yes, it was. The entire article is about setting up a sting to catch Google helping people sell illicit drugs.

> The problem was that they were fake.

I'm running out of ways to explain this to you: the sting showed no evidence that Google knew that the drugs were fake---only that they knew that they were trying to sell illegal drugs.

There are two competing ideas going on here:

1) Google knowingly facilitated the sale of illegal drugs.

2) Google knowingly facilitated scammers.

From what I could tell, the article demonstrated (1) but not (2). I don't think (1) is evil. I _do_ think (2) is evil. So if you disagree with my interpretation of the article, at least you can be satisfied that we agree on something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The quotes from Larry are interesting, the juvenile commentary that surrounds them is not.

</comment><comment><USER20> As much as I philosophically agree, and _want_ to agree with much of the sentiment being evoked here ("solve problems", "cooperation", "progress", etc.), I can't help but shake the feeling there's a shark out there currently being jumped by a vibram-sporting surfer.

<comment><USER21> It's so weird you say that, because the first thing that came to my mind reading those quotes was Fonzie in swim trunks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Folks who are tired of lazy cynicism and spiteful snark might prefer to read this one: [http://gizmodo.com/larry-page-reminded-us-why-we-love- google...](http://gizmodo.com/larry-page-reminded-us-why-we-love-google- today-506915269)

</comment><comment><USER23> I identify with this.

I want to produce food for myself and my community on my property, and build structures that make efficient use of space for occupancy, and these things are extremely illegal.

<comment><USER24> Not a US citizen here.

Is growing food for community is illegal? is it due to the FDA requirements?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here's the Q&A for those who didn't see it

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfK8h73bb-o>

</comment><comment><USER26> Larry Page seems to be in denial that Google is different from Microsoft or Oracle. For the most part Google doesn't care about collaboration or innovation. What they care about is increasing their mass, by offering an ever increasing number of products & services, in order to attract more eyeballs to view ads.

What value is Google creating by making another subscription music service with a similar catalog size at the same price as existing companies?

What radical innovation has Google+ Hangouts incorporated that doesn't exist with Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp & Skype?

Why does the Chromebook Pixel look so much like a boxy Macbook Pro?

Just like Microsoft, they aren't trendsetters, they follow and copy what others are doing and use their brand recognition in order to gain market share.

Larry says "you can't focus on zero-sum games", but that is exactly what Google is doing. Maybe not for a specific industry ( Messaging, Music, etc ), but they are interested in winning the zero-sum game of people's attention.

If Google can spread itself across as many industries as possible, not necessary being the market leader of a specific industry, and take slices of people's attention here and there, they'll win the attention game.

Google embraces collaboration/standardization because it means a lower barrier of entry into another industry for them.

</comment><comment><USER27> Maybe he can try starting a charter city.

</comment><comment><USER28> Well, if Google decides to found a new country akin to Bioshock's Rapture, I don't think they'll lack for volunteer citizens...

But even for Google, founding a country would be enormously difficult. So even if Page genuinely wanted to, it won't happen this decade. Whether it should is a different issue.

</comment><comment><USER29> These are big words considering Google is the biggest thief in the history of the world. But who cares about intellectual property anyway?

</comment><comment><USER30> Beta testing a new country? East Timor comes to mind. It's a fairly young independent country. Maybe the newest actually.

<comment><USER31> South Sudan is the newest :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I want to live there ;_;

</comment><comment><USER33> Google city - self driving cars only, please.

</comment><comment><USER4> Copy pasta from someone else's HN comment on Google sending cease and desist to MS for Youtube story:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5715889>

From Google's About page: "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Last time when Google was intentionally blocking Google maps and then deprecated ActiveSync on Windows Phone someone suggested Google should updated it to the following:(which seems quite true given how much of the world's crowdsourced video content is on YouTube):

"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, except on Windows Phone".

</comment><comment><USER34> I hope Google moves to Texas!</comment>


Look Ma No OS (On Squeak and no OS) - <AUTHOR> http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=239339 <comment><USER2> You want me to use Smalltalk? OK I downloaded Squeak and plaed ayound with the cute MINI-OS-GUI-platform-thing.

Ok very different from what I had done before. Seemed to make easy stuff hard. Of course that could just be me not being used to that type of programming. How long does it take to learn Squeak, I mean to really learn effectively?

Is there a way to use Smalltalk as an ordinary programming language? Is there somewhere I can go to download and get going fast?

<comment><USER3> Squeak has a learning curve, that's for sure. The language itself it easy, but the environment is so different that it takes some getting used to. I would recommend Squeak By Example (<http://squeakbyexample.org/>).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't get the No OS bit. Why not call it an OS and claim: it boots in a few seconds? Then, make it run C code, and voila, you're set.

Are we ever going to move beyond Unix?

<comment><USER5> The point is that it's supposed to be a Squeak VM running directly on hardware. (So converting the VM to a CM -- Concrete Machine; yes, I did just coin that term). Running C code would mostly defeat the purpose.

Also, in a way it is an OS, but it's an OS that does nothing more than run what used to be a single userspace VM, so.. unless a VM is a userspace OS, it feels kind of funny to say that this is an OS...

Essentially, this is an OS-free VM, or a single VM OS. Both are correct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool, but... this is one of the "problems" with Smalltalk and Lisp, in terms of the mentality. Instead of focusing on what 99% of developers need, they work on doing turtles all the way down, and go into business competing with Linux, Windows, et al.

Now, from a pure tech point of view, what they're doing is cool, interesting, and worthy of praise. Just that they shouldn't complain if they wonder why they're not as popular as Ruby, Python and friends.

<comment><USER7> The idea of eliminating the OS isn't about "competing" with Linux or another OS. The idea is that in some cases you simply don't need a full traditional OS.

Ruby and Python have there place. They started as scripting languages and matured from there. If you haven't done serious work in Smalltalk you don't have the understanding to compare. Smalltalk did certainly provide 99% of what most developers needed. The reason Ruby has taken market share and Smalltalk's market share seems smaller has little to do with comparing choices between the two.

Smalltalk's ascent was throttled because of the promise of Java. Ruby has risen in large part due to the fact that Java has not lived up to its promise in certain aspects. Could Smalltalk have made a stronger comeback instead of Ruby coming on strong? Maybe...but that a complex discussion.

To those that were inside the Smalltalk community when Java came on the scene, they know that Smalltalk died essentially because Sun had no revenue model against Java and could give it away for free. All three Smalltalk vendors at the time sold per seat licenses for the technology. Their business models did not allow them to rapidly change and give it away for free. This is the core of the reason along with the fact that Sun had lots of money to throw around to convince people they knew what they were doing.

<comment><USER6> It's certainly a complex discussion without one answer, but my point is this:

> The idea is that in some cases you simply don't need a full traditional OS.

The number of those cases is quite limited compared to the number of cases where developers are perfectly content to develop on top of an OS. Therefore, investing effort in the limited case rather than in the common case is effort most likely not wisely spent.

<comment><USER8> Both points of view are valid, and both are represented in the Squeak community. There are projects to make 'businessy' frameworks to harness the power of Smalltalk for conventional applications. There are also lots of people who love Squeak precisely because it's so different from their day jobs. They do what they find fun, and care not a jot if there will be one other person who might find it useful. Sometimes this is frustrating, in that you feel the effort could be channeled elsewhere, but if it weren't like that it wouldn't be Squeak.

There will be real world applications for Squeak all the way down, but it clearly won't be another general ledger or another social bookmarking widget. It might be an iPhone that anyone can reprogram for themselves, or it might be a device that no-one has realised they need yet, or...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just grabbed it and played around. I don't really know Smalltalk very well, but it's kind of neat, I guess. If it wasn't running in vmware I couldn't actually use it a real computer for how much you give up. Maybe as a deployment method along with VMWare ThinApp I could see it being practical?

I'm almost scared to ask, but is there projects that I don't know about to do SBCLNOS (EmacsNOS?), or PyNOS, or RubiNOS?

<comment> a-priori Believe it or not, there is actually a Lisp implementation that runs on bare metal. It's called Movitz:

<http://common-lisp.net/project/movitz/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Whenever I think about a "next generation" OS, I tend to imagine something like Squeak. I'm glad the SqueakNOS guys have decided to go with an underlying Linux kernel instead of doing it entirely from scratch.</comment>


Grooveshark Shuts Down - <AUTHOR> http://grooveshark.com/ <comment><USER2> Grooveshark, I want you to know I loved you. As a user. As an ex-employee. You taught me so much. I remember my task as an intern was to turn Autoplay into something more beyond office employees voting on their favorite genres of music. I remember my first attempt at an algorithm, everyone got Coldplay as their recommended artist. I remember when we discovered Hadoop for the first time and our analysis on TBs of data took minutes instead of weeks. I remember when Ed accidentally dropped the Artist table on master, then quickly stopped the replication process before all hell broke loose. I remember when Nate made it so every image on any website I visited on my laptop showed sexually explicit material when investors came for a visit. I remember when Skyler met his (now) wife. I remember learning about advertising and meeting Less Than Jake. I remember learning not to run a Group By on mysql when it had 8 billion rows in the middle of the day during peak use. I remember going without a salary for 6 months because we had no money. And yet we persevered. You guys and girls gave me excellent real world experience at a time when I shouldn't have been trusted with a computer. Thank you for all the good times and the great culture you instilled. Hope the Atlantic gives everyone free tallboys tonight.

<comment><USER3> That sounds like a lovely time, would make a great book or movie.

Personally I'd never really even heard of it except a long time ago, let alone used it. Nothing personal. Just one music service in a dense forest of same. That said, I'm of the opinion that a public Radio station and Library should be the model for transmission and curation of works. The shutting down of Grooveshark fills me with sonder, wonder, and sorrowful nostalgia for the earlier years.

<comment><USER4> Directed by Martin Scorcese.

<comment><USER5> Produced by Grooveshark Production Company !

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Syrup-tan The site is just an image with small text, so I've transcribed it here;

\---

Dear music fans,

Today we are shutting down Grooveshark.

We started out nearly ten years ago with the goal of helping fans share and discover music. 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.

As part of the settlement agreement with the major record companies, 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.

At the time of our launch, few music services provided the experience we wanted to offer - and think you deserve. Fortunately, that's not longer the case. There are now hundreds of fan friendly, affordable services available for you to choose from, including Spotify, Deezer, Google Play, Beats Music, Rhapsody and Rdio, among many others.

If you love music and respect the artists, songwriters and everyone else who makes great music possible, use a licensed service that compensates artists and other rights holders. You can find out more about the many great services available where you live here: [http://whymusicmatters.com/find- music](http://whymusicmatters.com/find-music).

It has been a privilege getting to know so many of you and enjoying music together. Thank you for being such passionate fans.

Yours in music, Your friends at Grooveshark April 30, 2015

\--

Source at [https://denpa.moe/~syrup/grooveshark- notice.txt](https://denpa.moe/~syrup/grooveshark-notice.txt)

<comment><USER6> "If you love music and respect the artists, songwriters and everyone else who makes great music possible, use a licensed service that compensates _artists_ and other rights holders."

It seems so easy compensate that second group that I work harder breathing each day. That first group, it seems like I could get a message to mars easier than to send them a whole dollar.

<comment><USER7> Buy a t-shirt. That's _the_ most direct route to actually help them out with as few middlemen as possible.

<comment><USER8> Can somebody verify this? I'm one who used Groove Shark to discovered music that I really like and then bought it in an effort to support the musician (thanks big music, you just took away one of your means of extracting money out of me).

I would happily wear the t-shirt if I knew that it was in fact the most direct route to actually transfer money to the musician.

<comment><USER7> I was a professional musician for 15 years. After having kids, the amount of time that I would've had to spend on the road playing and selling t shirts would've far outweighed the time I would've had to be home raising them, so I started teaching myself development in the tour bus. That was 7 years ago.

My old band is still out there, selling out Red Rocks, and any of their merch that you can buy at the show has the highest margin of anything. This is true for _every band_ from John Mayer to the Avett Brothers to your local Dead cover band.

So help me God, buy a shirt at the show or on their website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This makes me immensely sad as a long time user of Grooveshark.

Such contrast in fortunes when you compare YouTube [0] and Grooveshark. Grooveshark, for most part, was an amazing service. They were at the forefront of UI design, brilliant at surfacing new and related content (music), excellent at quality of service (variable bit-rate buffering).

You would think that with a good exit to a company like Yahoo or Amazon, it could have really been a hit. I could easily imagine Google gobbling them up and merging it with Vevo. It isn't a dramatically different service than YouTube. But it wasn't to be.

Doesn't it make sense to open source code when you know the product is dying?

[0] [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/04/23/cheaper- bandwidth-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/04/23/cheaper-bandwidth-or- bust-how-google-saved-youtube/)

<comment><USER10> >> Doesn't it make sense to open source code when you know the product is dying?

That can depend on how much of the code base is their own. If they integrated any licensed components then they may not have the resources necessary to clean it up for release.

<comment><USER11> They own zero percent of the codebase. According to the link all IP was turned over to the winners of the court case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a native of Gainesville, FL (where Grooveshark is based), this is really sad news. Certainly they made mistakes, but what few see is how much they contributed to the tech community here. Their CTO has personally mentored many companies in the area, and they have a presence at pretty much every tech- related event. I can't think of any other company within a 100-mile radius that can fill that role now that they're gone. Hopefully they'll spin off some new businesses in the area. Otherwise this will be a huge blow to Gainesville's already struggling tech and startup communities.

<comment><USER13> Well, the flipside is, let's face it, their business was pretty darn shady... not much a role model for other up-and-coming entrepreneurs.

I absolutely grant you their technology was pretty cool, and the community features they built are still unreplicated anywhere.

But I'd rather laud businesses who manage to combine cool technology with an ethical, sustainable business model.

<comment><USER14> > Well, the flipside is, let's face it, their business was pretty darn > shady... not much a role model for other up-and-coming entrepreneurs.

I'll be frank: I don't see Grooveshark's business as inherently more shady than some of the other "act first, get permission later" startups that are lauded both in the press and on HN on a regular basis.

For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of those companies either, but I find it weird that the overall sentiment towards Gooveshark seems to be negative, when there are many other companies that blatantly and openly violate the law as well.

And furthermore, while things didn't work out for Grooveshark, it's pretty clear that Grooveshark (or at least business/products like it) have been the reason for services like Spotify and Rdio. I think it's pretty clear that we wouldn't have music streaming services if it weren't for the long line of services operating at the fringes, like TPB, Grooveshark, Napster, etc. So even if they ended up failing as a company, the gap that they sought to fill a decade ago has been mostly filled by services like Spotify and Rdio[0].

All that said, I agree with this statement:

> But I'd rather laud businesses who manage to combine cool technology with an > ethical, sustainable business model.

I just don't think Grooveshark is anything close to the worst offender.

[0] Services which, I might add, have been financed _by the record industry itself_.

<comment><USER13> Looking around here, I'm not sure what negative sentiment you're referring to, but... :)

That said, I think the answer to your puzzlement is pretty simple: every situation is different.

For example, I don't much sympathize with taxi medallion monopolies. While I understand how they evolved, today it's clear that the existing taxi business model needed to be disrupted in order to improve the consumer experience. But that disruption has happened because of companies essentially violating existing regulations on taxi services.

On the other hand, I look at a business like GS, which generated its revenues by selling subscriptions to a service that dispensed content it did not produce, without compensating artists for the privilege, and I see nothing more than free riding on the backs of people who did the work to produce that content.

Of course, there's an ironic counterpoint here: were it not for the Groovesharks of the world, it's possible demand would never have been generated that now supports legal alternatives (in the same way that I'd claim music piracy is one of the reasons the iPod was ever brought to market).

Tricky. :)

<comment><USER14> > which generated its revenues by selling subscriptions to a service that > dispensed content it did not produce, without compensating artists for the > privilege, and I see nothing more than free riding on the backs of people > who did the work to produce that content.

Would you have a problem with it if they gave it away for free (and didn't have to worry about covering their operating costs, via a hypothetical _deus ex machina_?)

> today it's clear that the existing taxi business model needed to be > disrupted in order to improve the consumer experience.

I very strongly disagree with this premise, though perhaps that's getting into a different debate.

> Looking around here, I'm not sure what negative sentiment you're referring > to

I wasn't referring just to the comments on here, FWIW.

<comment><USER13> _Would you have a problem with it if they gave it away for free (and didn 't have to worry about covering their operating costs, via a deus ex machina?)_

That's a good question... I honestly don't know!

I'd definitely have _less_ of a problem with it... which is, I realize, pretty dumb as that doesn't alleviate the harm to the artists.

About the only intellectual justification I can come up with is that, as a free service, it's easier to position something like that as a way to discover artists. I think, by selling a subscription, their customers would be more likely to view their consumption as legitimate, and so wouldn't feel compelled to later turn around and buy the music they were listening to.

But again, that's my intellectualizing a position I can't honestly explain.

<comment><USER14> > I'd definitely have less of a problem with it... which is, I realize, pretty > dumb as that doesn't alleviate the harm to the artists.

> About the only intellectual justification I can come up with is that, as a > free service, it's easier to position something like that as a way to > discover artists. I think, by selling a subscription, their customers would > be more likely to view their consumption as legitimate, and so wouldn't feel > compelled to later turn around and buy the music they were listening to.

Well, think of it this way: that's exactly what public libraries already do - their funding comes from tax dollars, so they don't need to turn an operating profit

Actually, public libraries are arguably _worse_ , because tax revenues tax not just the consumers, but the artists themselves. Not only do they give artists' work away for free to consumers, but artists are actually forced to _pay_ for others to access their work for free!

<comment><USER13> Yeah, but when it comes to libraries there's a public-good element to their activities, as they provide access to those materials for those who otherwise may not be able to afford them.

In addition, a library, as a source of physical copies, can't lend and re-lend the same content over and over. Which is why, of course, ebook lending programs at libraries are often limited to a certain number of copies... there's an attempt to apply that same restriction to digital content.

Lastly, the lending is always time-limited, unlike digital services.

<comment><USER14> > Yeah, but when it comes to libraries there's a public-good element to their > activities, as they provide access to those materials for those who > otherwise may not be able to afford them.

How is that any different from free services like Grooveshark, The Pirate Bay, Napster, etc.?

<comment><USER13> I really need to explain to you that the poor don't generally have computers? Or internet access? :)

<comment><USER15> But.. they have access to libraries with computers... More seriously, most of the world doesn't have easy access to libraries like US or some other developed countries while they do have access to decent internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm sooooo glad I was paying a yearly fee for a VIP membership... and now I can't even get a copy of my playlists. All of those obscure songs I fell in love with are gone. I wonder if the information they turned over included my credit card billing data...

<sigh>

Is it time to build a personal, private, self-hosted, open-source grooveshark clone?

<comment><USER17> > Is it time to build a personal, private, self-hosted, open-source > grooveshark clone?

Popcorn Time [1] meets Spotify?

[1] [https://popcorntime.io/](https://popcorntime.io/)

<comment><USER18> I tried building an primitive version of that idea a few years ago, called Downstream [1] that scoured MP3 spider sites for URLs, then fed them into AxWMPLib (MS's drop-in media player).

It had a few ideas that were before their time, like a playlist DJ, and what a 17 year old me thought passed for a 'stylish UI' [2]

[1] [https://github.com/MattRyder/Downstream](https://github.com/MattRyder/Downstream)

[2] [http://screenshots.en.sftcdn.net/en/scrn/328000/328491/downs...](http://screenshots.en.sftcdn.net/en/scrn/328000/328491/downstream-03-700x365.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "As a part of a settlement agreement with the major record companies, 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."

Ouch. Sounds harsh. Wonder if they had to turn over the user data as well...

<comment><USER20> I wonder if they had to make such an apologetic statement as well.

<comment><USER21> When you have a loaded gun down your throat...

<comment><USER22> A Hobson's choice is still a choice isn't it? Says so in the name anyway.

<comment><USER21> Sure, it's still a choice, but it's a situation where you don't have the upper hand and you are bound to lose no matter what you do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There's a large number of artists who's CDs I've bought because I was able to listen to their entire album on Grooveshark. Artists who's radio songs didn't come close to demonstrating their true skills. Of course, I've also passed on CDs because I was able to find out an artist only has 1 or 2 songs worth listening to. This is seriously going to hinder my discovering of new music. I didn't even know they were in court but I knew it couldn't last.

</comment><comment><USER24> Reposting a reply by Jackson800 to a comment below:

If you act quick, you can access some of your playlist data by logging in here: [http://groovebackup.com/](http://groovebackup.com/)

<comment><USER25> That failed for most of my playlists and favorites.

However, it's also possible to get some playlists from your browsers local cache:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/h9ubz6l2uedt6mc/Screenshot%202015-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/h9ubz6l2uedt6mc/Screenshot%202015-04-30%2018.22.11.png)

<comment><USER26> Thank you, that worked great as it had majority of my library saved in JSON format.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Dear Grooveshark,

From the first day I saw your service, I had doubts about the legitimacy of what you were doing. After watching YouTube grow into a massive company - building on infringement then turning a corner through appeasement to the legacy media interests - I knew doing a pivot was possible. Every time I saw your name mentioned, it looked like you were refusing to play ball.

Part of me applauds anything that really pisses off the RIAA, and there's another part of me that has rational fear of what the RIAA is capable of doing through legal channels. Your service had a big bullseye painted on it, so I stayed far, far away. I never even bothered to check if my music ended up there...I was too busy focusing on channels I know to at least try to be in- line with artist payment methods (iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google, etc). I fully comprehend the notion of Safe Harbors, and also comprehend that there was no way - ever - that you could lawyer up enough to defeat RIAA.

Music is an industry that truly does need to evolve, as the current disruptions are helpful, but still lacking the genius innovation to best connect listeners and content producers in an equitable relationship. Will it ever happen? I'm optimistic. However, this day was inevitable, and as much as I'd like to compliment you on trying, I'm held back by the fact Grooveshark was, for lack of a better term, a white-washed piracy site. Good luck on your next endeavors, and I truly hope you learned from this experience.

\- An Independent Musician

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm actually surprised it lasted so long. The business model was wrong from the beginning.

The thing is that in the early months/years, nothing was working as well as Grooveshark. If the website made the big record make so move, all the Grooveshark team's work was not in vein.

<comment><USER29> Just a heads up, its vain, not vein. =))

<comment><USER28> Vein would be for blood in that case ;)

Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I knew. I KNEW I should have backed up my music library. I once played a bit with their Javascript front-end and figured out how I could do it, but never got around to. I also planned on asking them to send me a copy -- I'm a paying customer, it seemed reasonable. A copy of the song list of course, not the songs themselves.

Now I only have what is cached locally on my phone. I've disabled WiFi and mobile data and opened the Grooveshark app: phew, it's still there (no remote wipe). I remember less than three days ago my subscription was renewed. The app locally checks the date, so I have a small month to get my data out of there.

One tiny bit of luck: I already figured out how to decrypt the locally stored songs back into mp3s. That's at least something... if I can dig up the script again.

Anyone ideas on how to get the full list back easily? Is there a data archive I can download for my "VIP" account?

Edit: reddit helps out! See: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/34goss/meta_groovesh...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/34goss/meta_grooveshark_shut_down_forever_today/)

There is GoodForOneCare's comment with some Javascript (which didn't work for me, but gave me some hints) and there is [http://groovebackup.com](http://groovebackup.com) which retrieved a few playlists for me. That's something at least, whew.

Now let's see about extracting my phone's data...

Edit2: found my decryption script but it doesn't contain their encryption key. Guess I'll have to re-crack it, this time without Wireshark to capture the decrypted data. It's a simple substitution cipher though, shouldn't be too hard.

Edit3: pulling data from my phone, from the root of my sdcard (/dev/block/mmcblk0p16), the files are located in:

        /app/com.grooveshark* for the APK
        /data/com.grooveshark.android.v1 for stuff
        /media/0/Android/data/com.grooveshark.android.v1 for cache and offline files

<comment><USER31> How did you decrypt offlined files?

I have a bunch of songs trapped in the official app on an android device. I would love to know how to convert the .dat files into .mp3s or similar. please share

<comment><USER30> I haven't found a way yet, cracking the encryption is taking longer than I expected. I spent about a day on it now and it could take another few days, but I probably have the decryption key at home. I'll be home next Friday, so that would be the earliest time I could get to them (if I still have it).

Send me your email address at firstname.lastname@example.com if you want to be updated when I found it. Or if you find anything, let me know too! :)

<comment><USER30> Update: I've found a way to decrypt it. The above email address is valid until at least 2015-05-31.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I was at UF working on another startup when GrooveShark started and was pretty familiar with how they started. One of our co-founders even did some design work for them. GrooveShark always had an awesome user experience, and I always wished their business model would be legitimized so their company can prosper and service consumers as how they should be.

I wish the best of luck to Sam and Josh. I hope they are able to take their passion onto other endeavors. Though UF has a lot of talented students, because Gainesville is a dinky city, it doesn't have the same startup resources as on the west cost. Grooveshark was able to give a lot of students the opportunity to work on something cool and bring some exposure to UF.

</comment><comment><USER33> I switched to Rdio a few years ago, but before that I was a huge Grooveshark fan. Other commenters have mentioned this as well, but I think Grooveshark was waaaay ahead of their time with their HTML5 interface. I remember being absolutely floored by their big first redesign.

I interned at a quasi-competitor whose deal was to allow you to upload your own music (pre-Google Music) and I remember one of the founders constantly talking about how Grooveshark wouldn't last long with all the lawsuits. That was ~6 years ago, and honestly I'm astonished it took this long.

It's a shame to see it go. I don't have much faith in this happening, but hopefully some of the code makes it out of all this.

</comment><comment><USER34> I've been a GS user since almost the beginning, back when there was a little java tool for uploading your music collection. GS gave me a way to access my library for free and in a consistent manner over the past decade. I waited for days as my library of 10000+ tracks (90% indie/alt + underground artists) uploaded to their servers.

GS was way ahead of the curve when it came to delivering music easily and widely. The HTML5 interface worked simly everywhere. Using a IE on a 360? 1st gen iPhone? Potato? Search as song, press play, enjoy.

GS filled a niche that Spotify cannot ever fill. Because GS was built upon the libraries of its users, all the little mp3s that had been hoarded, recorded, never officially released, fan remixes and safegaurded had been uploaded with the mainstream content. It was built on what users kept because they knew it could not be replaced. The special, the underground.

So long GS. "Hack the Gibson, hack the Gibson, I'm seedin' BitTorrents like a digital pimp, son."

</comment><comment><USER35> Although it is not a direct replacement I've been honestly impressed by the app 6 seconds. It's by the same guy who created mp3.com and his team indexed radio station playlists in real time, something Google thought impossible.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2015/04/17/6seconds...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2015/04/17/6seconds- looks-to-rival-pandora-with-unlimited-skips/)

</comment><comment><USER36> The lawsuit that killed it can be found here:

[http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/mrgtoqd0/new-york- southern-...](http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/mrgtoqd0/new-york-southern- district-court/umg-recording-inc-v-escape-media-group-inc-et-al/)

<comment><USER37> As much as it must suck for Sam Tarantino & co., it must also be relieving in some measure - fighting such huge labels for so long must've been incredibly stressful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Yet another anecdote here... for me, Grooveshark was the genesis of music discovery. Napster, limewire, etc. helped with artists I knew about already. mp3.com helped me with genres but did not expand my library too much. Early Last.fm/audioscrobbler was interesting to see what my friends were listening to, but it was not effortless to discover similar/new music there. Winamp shoutcast stations helped me to broaden my music portfolio, but there was no mechanism to save favorite songs/artists that I had heard, and re-listen to them. GS took the best of all those things and added more.

So I listened to GS for years. I owe GS a lot. Now I wonder if I, or if we had supported them more, would they have not met their demise?

</comment><comment><USER39> Does anyone have a good sense for how hard it would be to operate a service like this in a vaguely legal way?

I understand that Grooveshark's own employees were instructed to download music and upload it to Grooveshark. If this had not been the case, or if they could not prove that this was the case, would their service be technically legal (safe harbor laws,etc)?

<comment><USER40> You'd have thought they'ed be smarter than that. They go to all this trouble to get around the DMCA and then they get busted because they told the employees to upload music, from work computers no less.

<comment><USER24> IIRC, this was in the very beginning of the company, the first year or so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is really sad news. I used to look at the Grooveshark interfaces with awe. You guys were always on top of your usability and design, right down to the 400 error pages.

I really love the goal you guys had when you started on this journey, and I admire that you were forging a new path. Before all of these music services came out, you were the only reliable option for listening to music the way I wanted to.

Josh, thank you for taking time to share your story with me when I was in college writing Startups Open Sourced. I admire your enthusiasm and persistence, and you seem like an awesome person to work with in any capacity.

I wish everyone at Grooveshark the best.

</comment><comment><USER42> Anyone know what patents they held? I wonder if music industry will leverage them to take down other sites who are acting within the law via patent suits.

<comment><USER43> I don't know enough about how the patent system works. Wikipedia says Grooveshark is a service of Escape Media Group Inc. A few results show up in Google's patent search for Escape Media Group Inc.

Edit to add link: [https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl=en&q=inassign...](https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl=en&q=inassignee:%22Escape+Media+Group,+Inc.%22)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> A good alternative is to use the web version of Spotify ([https://play.spotify.com/](https://play.spotify.com/)) with AdBlock.

<comment><USER45> Wow! I had no idea that they had a web only client. Thanks. I definitely prefer webapps to desktop installs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Grooveshark's radio was awesome. I cannot count how many artists I have discovered that way.

<comment><USER16> I agree with this wholeheartedly. The majority of my favorite playlists were filled with music I had slowly curated by favoriting songs I heard while listening to the radio stations. Even if I can still listen to my own music via youtube/vlc, the grooveshark ecosystem was a gem, and now it is gone

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I was listening to music (on Grooveshark touch) while driving down the highway. The page refreshed and this came up, it was a very weird feeling.

This was the best music product I've ever used, and it was buggy as fuck sometimes. I used it so much I learned weird ways to get around the menu rendering issues on the html5/touch version of grooveshark. Even with its bugs it was my main music platform.

Thank you for your hard work. It was one of my favorite webapps.

Long live Grooveshark~

<comment><USER48> Mobile web client was seriously the buggiest piece of shit ever. Every week it introduced new little things that you had to find ways around. But I still battled it every time I got in my car so I could listen to exactly wtf I wanted to listen to. That will be missed greatly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Honestly, what was Grooveshark doing that was hurting anybody? If you'd answer by saying 'The artists' or 'the record companies', you're dead wrong. Record companies have insane income, while artists and bands make up a large portion of the world's millionaires. New or less popular artists were sometimes even positively affected by their music being on the site, as it made finding their music easier. The companies who sued are only showing the world what they actually care about. Money. Yeah, money. Cash, loot, dollars, euro, yen, moo- lah. Whatever you want to call it. I'm not saying that Grooveshark was perfect or that it's employees were saints, but I am saying that they were treated unfairly. The RIAA is trash, and Grooveshark's demise is a testament to that. Personally, as a musical artist and as someone who loves music of all kinds, I would never trust my music with any of these companies. The only way I can feel toward artists who go along with what these companies is disgusted. My music will always be allowed on streaming websites, as long as I get proper credit for it, not payment. Credit.

</comment><comment><USER50> As a long-time Grooveshark user, (paying) subscriber, and partner, this is a very sad event. I echo others in that Grooveshark's music service was one of the best out there in terms of their UI, audio quality and music discovery--I discovered TONS of new bands and artists thanks to them, and bough the music of those I really loved.

A word about Josh Greenberg, the co-founder and CTO of Grooveshark. He's an amazing guy. When I started my startup Metrical[0], he was the first person to give it a try--in a real, production environment. He put us in front of millions of users and was patient as we worked through bugs and issues. He really put faith in someone with a "cool idea" and gave me a shot. Thanks Josh!

Grooveshark was an amazing service, and will be missed. Josh, I'm looking forward to seeing you go on to bigger and better things.

Remember The Man In The Arena, by Theodore Roosevelt:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

0 - [http://getMetrical.com](http://getMetrical.com)

</comment><comment><USER51> As someone who works full time in the music business, I shed no tears for Grooveshark.

The only thing I don't like about this situation is that there appears to be no settlement for the thousands (tens, hundreds?) of indie artists, labels, writers and publishers whose music was on the site.

10% revenue loss for an indie label or publisher has a far greater impact on their viability than 10% loss to <insert major label here>.

<comment><USER52> You make music because it's fun. If you're doing it for the money you're doing it wrong. If I could make even a single dime on my music it would be a privilege but I'm happy as it is.

<comment><USER52> Getting downvoted but my opinion stands: being a musician is not a job and you can't expect to get paid for it. It would be like expecting to get paid for playing video games. Making music is a leisure activity and a very rewarding one. Thinking you should make a living on it is just greedy. Get a normal job and create music for its own sake.

<comment><USER53> You can, infact, make a living with playing video games. I wonder how you would feel if I said developing is a big hobby of mine, a leisure activity, and a very rewarding one actually. You should not make money from that, get a real job, and practice your development hobby for its own sake.

<comment><USER52> Yes, I know you can. Just as you can make money making music. The important word here is "can". You are not however entitled to it. A lucky few gets paid but that's an extreme privilege you shouldn't take for granted.

The difference with development is that no-one questions the business model. You code and get paid for it while music is a completely different story. Before I became a professional developer I coded for fun and was happy with that. If the market would be like music (where 99% of artists cannot make a living out of it) then yes, I would say exactly that.

<comment><USER54> Nobody is "entitled" to make a living from making music. However, everyone is entitled to say "I have created some music. In exchange for some money I will give you a copy of this music".

You say "no-one questions the business model" which is clearly false. Have you never heard of a developer being asked to work for free (or equity) on someone else's idea? IMHO that's the same as you saying musicians should be grateful to earn any money from their work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Damn. They just launched a major redesign of the site a few weeks back and (unlike most major redesigns) people didn't hate it. The loss of my remaining VIP membership is nothing compared to my sadness at losing my favorite music service, not to mention having to find a replacement. At least when Google Reader shut down I wasn't a paying customer.

</comment><comment><USER56> 8 Years. I have loved and listened on Grooveshark for the last 8 years. Since my first job while in highschool. You were the first app I have ever installed, on my company _blackberry_ so I could listen on the commute. You let me send my highschool sweetheart songs of love and joy, let me express so effortlessly what I wanted to say when words fail. Her and I needed you through long nights at college, keeping us focused and energized. When I scored my first internship we offlined our entire collections for the 36 hour drive from Chicago to California. We drove that 4 more times with you. And finally, after the many years of sharing together and a college degree later, you were there to play the music as she walked down the isle.

I can genuinely say you made my life better, you have given me true happiness. Thank You.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB2YyAgg9Z4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB2YyAgg9Z4)

</comment><comment><USER57> "We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service."

That's one way of putting it. I'm sad to see grooveshark go but always wondered how the hell it was legal every time I used it. I guess it turns out it wasn't. To be honest I'm shocked it lasted this long.

</comment><comment><USER58> To recover my collections and playlists i used:

webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PutYourUrlHere&strip=1

1\. Seach your profile (or your profile's collection, playlist etc.) with Google.

2\. Don't click search results, just copy the URL of your profile

3\. Replace the text "PutYourUrlHere" with the URL you copied. It is important to include "&strip=1" at the end because it opens you the text version of the page, otherwise it won't work.

My cached profile page was from 28.3.2015, so at least I managed to save most of my data. groovebackup.com was not as useful as this approach.

<comment><USER59> Could you try it again and see if that still works? I couldn't get it (or any of the other methods) to work. Did they maybe update the robots.txt so google can't cache it anymore?

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> These things just make me more determined to stick by my music collection in mp3/ogg format, stored locally.

Until the digital rights to copy bits are globally declared we can't trust any company to provide continuous service, regardless of how well "licensed" they are. People are copying music anyway but the mafiaa make it difficult for you to create a public service or offer a public tool to do it easily, even if you're still exercising your fundamental rights to manipulate your own computer and your own storage in any way you like.

</comment><comment><USER61> I've been using them for the last 2 years and had a huge playlist. Is there any way to retrieve the playlist? groovebackup.com just returns "Missing data for playlist"

</comment><comment><USER40> bummer. There goes allll my playlists.

<comment><USER62> Same here. I've kind of dreaded this day and thought why is there no standardized 'playlist protocol' or playlist format that music services could share. This is like the 4th time I've had an old music service shut down and lost all my playlists with no migration path.

<comment><USER63> There is a standard (more-or-less) playlist format: m3u. The trick is convincing services to implement export of that information.

<comment><USER64> The problem may be that the m3u would contains artist name, song title, and position in the playlist, and even if you could export this, it would not be very robust to import somewhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> First, Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Second, So the major music companies own the music I created and uploaded as past of the GrooveShark artist program?

</comment><comment><USER66> Well, I'm sorta sad and pissed. I was in their original $30/year plan and I got charged like 1 month ago... No refund? :(

<comment><USER67> If it was on a credit card, you could try contacting the bank for a refund. I don't know exactly the rules/laws about it, but I'd think only getting 1/12th of what you paid for is pretty good cause to get most of it back.

<comment><USER66> I used a debit card :(. But yeah, even getting half back would've been nice.

This is a good reminder that I should stop using my debit card online, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Oh, shit ! And now I lost my favourite music lists without possibility of recovering. I had some music there that I can't find in other places. Great..... If they could allow to recover these lists (Author - Song) on text. You are doing "good bye" in a way that a lot of user would hate.

</comment><comment><USER69> You can probably recover your playlist. (Instructions for Chrome) On the computer you used grooveshark on: visit the website, open developer tools, open "resources tab", click on local storage->grooveshark.com. Now find the key called 'libraryXXXXXX' where the X's are numbers. Right-click it, "edit value" and copy/paste that data here: [https://json-csv.com](https://json- csv.com). Source of instructions: [http://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/34goss/meta_groovesha...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/34goss/meta_grooveshark_shut_down_forever_today/)

</comment><comment><USER70> I would pay money to get my playlists which I painstakingly curated back. (They weren't on [http://groovebackup.com.](http://groovebackup.com.))

And I thought I would learn after I lost a bunch of stuff when megaupload got shut down...

</comment><comment><USER71> They were amazing. Rest in peace.

</comment><comment><USER72> I really respect Sam as a CEO. Anytime I've seen him talk about the music industry, it has been fresh and his ideas could really fix it. I used grooveshark for as long as I could, but moved to Spotify about a year ago.

</comment><comment><USER13> Eh, after a couple years with a paid GS subscription I switched to a higher quality paid service a while ago. Grooveshark's brutally bad album support, combined with the penchant for content just vanishing from my playlists, rendered the service nearly useless to me in the long run.

AFAICT, it's most unique feature was community radios... a feature I'd love to see replicated elsewhere but is, as for as I know anyway, still unduplicated.

<comment><USER73> Which service did you move to?

<comment><USER13> I've personally switched to Google Play Music, mostly out of sheer convenience. Previously I used just the free service to upload my own stuff... the amount of storage they offer is pretty huge and the sync app isn't too bad.

Then I decided to give All Access a try and discovered a pretty enormous selection at a decent price (double what I was paying for my GS subscription, but with a properly curated library that doesn't disappear randomly), with full offlining support to my phone.

Overall I've been incredibly happy. I'm sure other services are as good or better but I've not found a reason, yet, to shop around so I figure I'll stick with Play for the foreseeable future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Wow, was listening to some Sturgill Simpson, went out and came back to a "server is having issues" page. Refreshed it later and this happens!

<comment><USER75> If you act quick, you can access some of your playlist data by logging in here:

[http://groovebackup.com/](http://groovebackup.com/)

I couldn't get everything back, but could get a few of my playlists at least...

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Oh no! I'm so sorry to see you go! :( But I think it's awful not to have at least one days or a few hours notice. I've been a loyal follower for years and have so many amazing playlists I've carefully cultivated on there. I know it was perhaps foolish to do so on this site alone, but my God, I'm heartbroken. Is there no way of recovering just the lists of song names? Pleeeease?

</comment><comment><USER77> I can't believe that grooveshark's actually gone. there was a time when it didn't work on our computer, and it was awful. Grooveshark's always been my go-to place for music, and I loved it. Now that it's gone, I'm super sad and angry. I had all my music on there, and it's all gone :( all I have now is what I can remember. Imma miss you guys.

</comment><comment><USER78> Why embed the message in an image, instead of text?

<comment><USER79> If you don't know CSS and already laid off the person who does, then it's a good way to center text.

<comment><USER80> I'd be inclined to agree if "text-align: center" weren't already in the page source...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> Uau that was a big surprise! I have been using this service for such a long time. Now, what would be the best alternatives available ?

<comment><USER82> Perhaps any of the alternatives they listed on their site?

<comment><USER83> I found it interesting that they omitted two very obvious alternatives (Pandora and Slacker Radio). An overt snub, or simply no point in naming two of the most well known services?

<comment><USER84> Pandora doesn't provide the same service. They purely do "radio" and don't let you make playlists or play specific songs.

I can't explain Slacker's omission though.

<comment><USER83> I thought Pandora offered playlists in their paid tier? I've never paid for it so I don't know the details of their full service.

<comment><USER84> Their paid service just removes ads, and adds some minor enhancements like allowing more skips.

<comment><USER83> >allowing more skips

Hmm, I'd think if I'm paying for the service I could skip as many times as I want.

Thanks for the info!

<comment><USER84> Yeah, you'd think....

Pandora is a weird service. They pay less for their music in exchange for putting restrictions on it that make it less likely to substitute for music purchases. It really is supposed to just be radio, and they do things like limit skips so that you can't just skip ahead until you get to the exact song you want to listen to. The music companies want you to still go out and buy the album if you want to do that. On the other hand, Pandora is cheaper, at $5/month versus, for example, $10/month for Spotify.

Personally, I wish I could get Pandora's selection algorithm's into Spotify and have the best of both worlds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> At which point customers once again learn about DRM.

I'm frankly amazed there are HN readers who didn't already realise this.

Piracy: The Better Choice(tm). [http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1043337/hd-disk- for...](http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1043337/hd-disk-format-wars)

</comment><comment><USER86> When BMI and ASCAP can shut down a coffee house "open mic" night in 24 hours it's absolutely astonishing that grooveshark lasted as long as it did.

But what's the harm? Just torrent the music you want, or if your daddy's rich, buy it for 99 cents or whatever.

</comment><comment><USER87> I've used them and assumed they had sorted the licensing issues.

I don't necessarily agree with the licensing model the music and film industries are using, but I'm surprised that, being so visible, they were able to keep going for so long without running into trouble.

</comment><comment><USER88> I used Grooveshark, they had the best service and they company was awesome.

Is a shame the music industry is rotten and went as far as to kill this awesome company. My best wish for the team, you guys are great, dont let this get you down.

And kudos for your all these years!

</comment><comment><USER89> I loved Grooveshark, but I knew from day one it was only a matter of time until their legal issues would catch up to them.

Loved the service though.

Every time they shut down a service like this 5 more pop up, so everyone will just start using the next incarnation.

Introducing Sharkster!

</comment><comment><USER90> Very sad to hear it. You guys made an awesome service with a gorgeous UI/UX. Your recommendation engine was the best of its kind. I wish you strength through difficult time and I'm sure you'll do great in future.

</comment><comment><USER91> "[T]he fact that company execs specifically went and reuploaded songs that were taken down by DMCA notices is incredibly damning." -Techdirt

This and Grokster... it'll be nice when we finally get a case where someone actually has clean hands.

Let this be a lesson to anyone starting a service without an idea of how big it'll get. Do something awesome, but keep your nose clean. (PS, in case it's not obvious - sometimes they read your early emails when you go to court, especially those sarcastic and glib ones that could be misread to make you look like a jerk.)

Meanwhile, how much data on Grooveshark users did the labels just acquire? I wonder if they'll see suits against users as a waste of time, or a way to quickly extract a small settlement from each of them...

</comment><comment><USER92> I loved this site. It had virtually all the music I listen, even some buried/abandonded tracks that are fairly hard to find online and are almost never on paid services. Goodbye, sweet prince.

</comment><comment><USER93> SeeqPod paved the way for Grooveshark and Spotify and was one of the first streaming search engines. They got acquired by Sony and that could still be an option for Grooveshark.

</comment><comment><USER94> >>As part of the settlement agreement with the major record companies, 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.

Wow - a company comprehensively crushed and defeated.

</comment><comment><USER95> super cruddy of them not to send anything out about this going down was using a week or two ago and now all the songs and play lists gone just a let down majorly.

</comment><comment><USER96> I think I am going to wear my Grooveshark shirt today.

</comment><comment><USER97> "That was wrong. We apologize"... After what, 3-4 years of mainly illegal content? Wow :) if only every crime was that easy to deal with. It's very Wall Street of them.

<comment><USER98> Unlicensed, not illegal.

<comment><USER99> My dictionary defines illegal as "contrary to or forbidden by law". If you're distributing material without permission it's still illegal even if you stick your fingers in your ears while loudly shouting "na na na I can't hear you!"

<comment><USER98> The _content_ is not illegal. Illegal content would be stuff like child pornography.

<comment><USER99> Trying to redefine the question will not make your earlier wrong answer correct. At no point has anyone questioned the legality of the actual music – the discussion has always been about whether it was legal for them to share copies.

<comment><USER98> I wasn't answering, I was nitpicking :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> So why a picture of text rather than just text?

</comment><comment><USER100> Man that sucks...I liked Grooveshark !

</comment><comment><USER101> NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

</comment><comment><USER102> Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

</comment><comment><USER103> Grooveshark changed my life.

</comment><comment><USER104> Damn. It was very useful.

</comment><comment><USER105> now I turn back to last.fm why are they still up?

</comment><comment><USER100> man that sucks...I liked Grooveshark.

</comment><comment><USER106> RIP

</comment><comment><USER107> So, the music industry most likely now has all the information about everyone who used GrooveShark. What are the chances they start suing uploaders, or even just heavy users?

</comment><comment><USER108> This just ruined my whole entire day!!!! All I know is grooveshark been with them since I was a child!!! This is not happening can't stop crying!. I love you grooveshark you guys was amazing!!! Please come back some other way!!!! Lmao

</comment><comment><USER109> I discovered it a few minutes ago because I had just purchased a Premium Spotify license and opened Grooveshark to export my collections.

All my favorite songs, albums and bands were listed there, and only there. I used Grooveshark for a few years, and enjoyed it. Thank you for that.

But also fuck you.

Throwing away data like that is unforgivable for a service. Imagine Facebook disappearing with your list of friends, or Google Docs with your documents. Since ownership was transferred, I don't expect to see my data again. And this destroys all goodwill I had.

"The writing was on the wall!" Whose wall? Certainly not mine, not with Youtube and its obviously pirated songs still existing.

Thank you for the generous service, Grooveshark, but fuck you for destroying my music collection.

(no, it's not on groovebackup.com)

<comment><USER110> > Imagine Facebook disappearing with your list of friends, or Google Docs with > your documents.

Yes, I imagine it on a daily basis. That's how the cloud works. It's happened before, and it will happen again. Any cloud based data is bound to disappear at any second because of a hack (ask Matt Hunan), because of a court order you are not aware of, because of an in-court-or-out-of-court settlement you are not part of and not aware of. Lots of reasons. That's why I don't actually trust the cloud as anything but backup.

Furthermore, anything not backed up offline (even if there's an online backup) is also in danger from malicious actors.

The only person to blame for not keeping a backup (of just the song titles, no less) is yourself. Use expletives if it makes you feel better, though, by all means.

<comment><USER111> I learned that the hard way a month ago when I found that all my photos from the past 6 years that I had been storing on Dropbox had been mysteriously deleted :(

Storing != backing up

Still trying to let go of ever having those visual memories again. Certainly you're right that it's no one's fault but our own, but that doesn't make the lose any easier to deal with. I do blame Dropbox though, considering I'm a paying customer. When it happened I saw that the actual backup feature costs extra.

Dropbox may be a ok syncing service but it's a pretty shitty backup service given any collaborators can delete your files. Suffice it to say I'll be backing up locally and finding an alternative to Dropbox.

(Sort of a tangent/rant/vent there, but if anyone has a recommendation for cloud backups I'd love to hear.)

<comment><USER110> No cloud experience myself that sounds useful to you, but BackBlaze seem to be everyone's favorite around here -- but do note that they are purely a "backup" rather than "storage" service.

They delete stuff you have not backed up in the last 30 days. If you have a removable drive that you backed up to backblaze, it must go through their program again once every 30 days, or they will consider this abandoned.

Ask yourself this, now: Why cloud, when $70 buys you a 1TB portable hard drive with ~100MB/sec bandwidth (that you don't have at all unless you live in Japan or Korea, and that you don't get to Dropbox/BackBlaze even if you live there).

<comment><USER112> Yev from Backblaze here -> You're not wrong. In fact we recommend having an on-site backup FIRST, then moving on to other backup mediums. I wrote a post about it -> [https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup- strategy/](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/). Online backup is great, but local backup will always be quicker to get data on to and off of!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I built Lambda's $12,500 4-GPU deep learning rig for $6200. Now you can, too - <AUTHOR> http://l7.curtisnorthcutt.com/build-pro-deep-learning-workstation <comment><AUTHOR> Hi hackers! I built a deep learning workstation comparable to Lambda's 4-GPU ( RTX 2080 ti ) rig for about half the price. So you can do the same, I'm sharing a time-lapse of the build, the parts list, the receipt, and benchmarking versus Google Compute Engine (GCE) on ImageNet. You save $1200 (the cost of an EVGA RTX 2080 ti GPU) per ImageNet training to use your own build instead of GCE. The training time is reduced by over half. In the post, I include only 3 GPUs in my build, but the build (increase PSU wattage) will support a 4th RTX 2080 TI GPU for $1200 more ($7400 total). Happy hacking!</comment>


Any one got examples of good myspace pages for web apps/ sites? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> <http://www.myspace.com/bandsintown>

More of a teaser than a real marketing tool at this point. But you never know. Can't hurt.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So a lot of web apps/ sites have a myspace. I've not seen any really good ones that really use the profile to pull people into the site content and so on.

</comment><comment><USER3> this one was an oldie but goodie back on techcrunch a few months ago.

<http://www.myspace.com/eyalgever>

for gizmoz.com

<comment><AUTHOR> nice one - i agree the plain white background look is a good mod for myspace</comment></comment>