Just days after officially shutting down, Grooveshark has returned to illegally provide music online.
Grooveshark.com may be no more, but a limited version of the website reappeared on April 5 at Grooveshark.io. The new site provides access to most of the same streaming music as the original Grooveshark, but it lacks the playlists and favorites features.
According to BGR, Grooveshark.io was launched by a team that began backing up all the music on the Grooveshark servers before the streaming service was shuttered last week. The group's leader, who calls himself "Shark," claims he has moved 90 percent of Grooveshark's music to the new site and is working on getting the remaining 10 percent.
It's unclear how long the site will last, as it is still in violation of the court decision that forced Grooveshark.com to close. The new site attempts to insulate itself from legal repercussions by issuing the following statement:
"Before you start downloading songs we want to tell you the following: The songs you want to download may have copyright(s) on them. This means you're not allowed to download the song if you don't possess the original record."
The site's terms of use also warn that distributing or downloading MP3 Files is illegal — unless the user does so for previewing purposes, with the intention of deleting the files afterward.
These warnings are however not enough to protect Grooveshark from the tentacles of the U.S. Department of Justice, and it's unclear how the site will be able to continue.
"We have all the servers/domains infrastructure in place, it's going to be a roller coaster and we're ready for it," the group told BGR.
Update: It looks as if the roller coaster ride may have been shorter than expected at the time of writing — Grooveshark.io is offline. No doubt this won't be the last we hear of Grooveshark — but for now, the shark has gone back to being dead.
