You may have just lost out a great mobile music app because Grooveshark is no longer available on the Apple Appstore. According to Apple this move was made due to a possible copyright infringement issue.
The reaction from the Grooveshark team has been one of disbelief and surprise. They have stated that Apple notified them that due to a Complaint received from the Universal Music Group of UK, the app has been yanked off the App Store.
They have also made it clear that they will try to get to the bottom of the issue as soon as possible and get the app available on the Store once again. This will help them address the inconvenience caused to their customers.
Grooveshark was definitely one of the best streaming music apps for the iPod and the iPhone. While you may say that it was quite similar to the Pandora app (which is no doubt the most popular one) the basic difference was that you could download almost any song you wanted even with the free version of the Grooveshark app. This is only possible with the paid version of the Pandora app.
So where did the Grooveshark app go wrong and possibly infringe copyrights?
Probably it was the feature which allowed you to upload as many songs as you want for other to share via live streaming. Usually a license is required for this type of a file sharing arrangement. And this is something the Grooveshark folks should have taken into account.
Maybe they will limit this feature before bringing the app back to life, but that remains to be seen. Till that time Apple has to abide by its policies and keep the app out of the Store for legal reasons.
But fret not, because there are some really good Grooveshark App alternatives out there too. The Rhapsody app allows you to stream numerous songs and has a subscription service which allows you to download songs even when there’s no data connection.
There is also the Rdio app which allows offline music access. But, both these services can cost you a fair bit and so, you may want to wait for the Grooveshark app to be back.
