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#1 Chukkzy

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Posted 21 January 2012 - 07:57 AM

We had the american SOPA PIPA discussion this week, we saw a stupid german multimillionaire getting his ass kicked in newzeeland and compromising his webservice for uploads and downloads, what I personally only noticed today is a totally different thing: Grooveshark is not available in germany anymore.

Should you not know what grooveshark is, its basically a music streaming service that streams individual titles/albums. They pulled out of germany this week, saying its the fault of GEMA (that is our organization here which collects the fees for music played in the media) and they would demand too much money to be economically.
GEMA on their side rejected this, saying that they did not get a penny from Grooveshark yet... which also is backed up by a few major music distributors who first struck a deal with Grooveshark, but then sued them.
GEMA also has an ongoing struggle with Google/Youtube over the fees, hence many musicvideos (also official channels!) are blocked in this country and are only accessable over a proxy.

Pandora and Hulu do this over years now, for other reasons but still it would be cool to be able to access these services (especially Hulu, since all shows here are german dubs and I prefer english).

There still are alternatives like Last.FM (playing as we speak) and Spotify is apparently planning a german launch once they come to an agreement with GEMA, but its kinda sad to see oncemore that the free Internet isn't so free after all, and all that because of outdated marketing concepts. Whats your opinion to this?
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#2 SpleenBeGone

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Posted 21 January 2012 - 08:02 AM

I think it's pretty stupid. Companies like that should lean that they have to change their selling strategy. It's the same as when a new physical media comes out, they have to move over to it. There's no reason that any of these sites should be blocked anywhere.

Are there reasons you don't use a proxy to access them?
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#3 Chukkzy

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Posted 21 January 2012 - 08:22 AM

I usually try to stay away from proxy sites and similar stuff, I am a bit paranoid lol. Also it feels like cheating... I usually am one of these people who thinks "If you do not want to sell your product to me I do not pay you either" (crappy metaphore I know), I think similar in such cases. Actually I have installed Itunes on my PC, after years of refusing to do so. Last FM is also pretty good, just that Grooveshark was damn convenient as you could listen to practically any song in the world at the touch of a button.

For Youtube, I actually do access it via unblocker, which still is inconvenient. They should get their act together, come to an agreement, develop new marketing strategies! Its what I need to do in my job every day, so why can't the companies do it.
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#4 SpleenBeGone

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Posted 21 January 2012 - 08:41 AM

Yeah, I can understand that. I'm just a fan of unrestricted internet access, but so far the US hasn't blocked any of the sites I like going to. Was Grooveshark related in any way to MegaUpload? Because I know they pulled the plug on that a few days ago.

Maybe you should give them your resume. You could be like an IRL Neo and set the internet free!
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#5 Chukkzy

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Posted 21 January 2012 - 09:39 AM

Nope, no connection. MU was done by a german dude called Kim Schmitz, aka Kim Dotcom (lol) aka Kim Jim Tim Vestor (rofl!), a very questionable guy who did shit like this in other areas in the past... he was brought to court for other stuff, among them insider stocks trading. He was not related to Grooveshark, this is a different thing.

Its unclear why GS pulled out of Germany, some people think that they were hinted that it could be troublesome for them to keep the service upright, but that is word of mouth. Noone really knows.
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#6 SpleenBeGone

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Posted 21 January 2012 - 10:07 AM

Those are awesome names. >.>

This has me pretty curious now. Keep us updated on anything you hear about it, I'd like to know the real reason if it's ever found out.
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#7 Chukkzy

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Posted 22 January 2012 - 12:25 PM

Aye Sir
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