Grooveshark Signs Licensing Agreement with UK-Based V2 Music Group
Label represents top artists including Dave Matthews Band, Aimee Mann, and many more

/Multimedia News Articles/ - GAINESVILLE, FL, May 03, 2007 - Grooveshark, a peer-to-peer (P2P) music sharing network which compensates copyright holders, today announced it has signed a licensing agreement with V2 Music Group, making it the first time a large independent label has released its catalog to a DRM-free P2P network.

"The Grooveshark business model is a very exciting and V2 are very pleased to be delivering our content on this platform as early as the beta stages," said Beth Appleton, head of Business Development at V2. "Peer to peer networks have phenomenal distribution and with that the commercial possibilities for distributing content could be revolutionary, with the right model. We hope that together with licensed content and an accurate pricing model, the super-distribution possibilities of peer to peer via this partnership could be a significant future revenue stream for V2 and our artists."

The UK-based V2 boasts an extensive music library, including Dave Matthews Band, Aimee Mann, The Rakes, Little Man Tate, Your Code Name is: Milo, Ray Davies and Rickie Lee Jones.

Grooveshark aims to revolutionize the music industry by combining the best of P2P file sharing and online music purchase sites into one service at www.grooveshark.com. Visitors can browse songs uploaded by other members and pay to download MP3 files with no digital rights management (DRM) technology. Songs vary in price, but cost no more than 99 cents. Grooveshark will pay appropriate royalties to copyright holders by taking commissions from users' transactions and also compensate users with free music for community participation such as uploading songs, fixing song tags, flagging unwanted files or reviewing music. Members will be rewarded based on their level of contribution to the community.

According to Sam Tarantino, founder and CEO of Grooveshark, "the agreement with V2 brings many well-known artists to Grooveshark's global P2P distribution network. We are thrilled that progressive labels such as V2 UK are open and willing to jump in the water with new models such as ours. The future is very bright for those who embrace the reality of new technology and demands of the digital consumer. Those focused on declining CD sales and the old models are seeing the glass half empty. We see this digital market as an enormous P2P opportunity to satisfy the intense demand for all music in the world at any place and any time. Grooveshark fully realizes consumers' desires for reasonably priced, DRM-free music purchases. The V2 agreement shows that the recording industry is realizing these desires as well."

Grooveshark recently enlisted the cooperation and support of other recording industry insiders including Grammy winning jazz producer Jason Miles and former Harry Fox Agency executive and record label owner Vincent Castellucci, both of whom sit on the Grooveshark board of advisors.

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