Barely a week after shutting down, controversial music streaming service Grooveshark has popped up online once again.
It appears that before Grooveshark reached a settlement agreement with some of the major record labels and officially closed its service last week, someone was already backing up the service’s music library.
Following its closure, Grooveshark was to be wiped of its data and handed over to an unspecified new party. However, a replica of the original Grooveshark service has arrive at a new URL, grooveshark.io.
Boy Genius Report have reportedly spoken to one of the creators of the Grooveshark replica, who goes by the name of Shark. Shark told BGR that their team hopes to reproduce Grooveshark’s user interface in its entirety, and explained how the team managed to save most of Grooveshark’s data.
“I started backing up all the content on the website when I started suspecting that Grooveshark’s demise is close and my suspicion was confirmed a few days later when they closed,” Shark said.
“By the time they closed I have already backed up 90% of the content on the site and I’m now working on getting the remaining 10%.
“We have all the servers/domains infrastructure in place, it’s going to be a roller coaster and we’re ready for it.”
By “roller coaster”, Shark presumably means the team will face a multitude of legal landmines in the coming days and weeks.
The identities of the team behind Grooveshark IO remains unknown, but with Grooveshark’s original copyrights and patents having already been seized, there’s no telling how long Grooveshark IO will be able to stay above water.
The original service has been found guilty of mass copyright infringement, and closed its doors last week after publishing a grovelling apology to labels and musicians.
“Despite 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,” the statement reads.
“That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation.”
