Grooveshark

Many claim that Grooveshark was the forerunner of streaming media services like Pandora that are popular today. In its heyday, the platform was hailed by Mashable as the best music app. Users could download the software for free, upload music files, and create playlists from those files and the files uploaded by other users. The beta version of the software sold music to users at a nominal cost and provided royalties to musical artists. It later evolved into a free service. Features of the app included the ability to skip to any portion of a song. It also allowed users to customize their player with skins or themes. Drag-and-drop functionality was enabled for creating playlists, and the app used a left sidebar for navigation. It worked in a manner similar to current streaming services like Pandora, but in many respects gave users more control over the music they chose to listen to. The app would also suggest music files for the user. Unfortunately, Grooveshark encountered problems with major record labels like Warner, Universal, and Sony. The record labels argued that the platform did not satisfy royalties that are paid to artists for their work. This led to a series of lawsuits which ultimately forced the company to close in 2015. A clone website appeared soon after the original Grooveshark website was closed. It claimed to be a revamped version of the service, but only proved to be a search engine for locating MP3 files online. During its active period, Grooveshark pioneered many features that are used by music streaming services today. Today's services have improved upon the old model by remaining in compliance with copyright laws.