Music Brokerage Grooveshark Goes Live with Limited Private Alpha Release

Starting today, Grooveshark members can share DRM-free music files legally and earn free music through community participation

[ClickPress, Tue Mar 27 2007] Proving to the music industry and music lovers worldwide that it can be done, Grooveshark today launched a limited private alpha release of the new peer-to-peer (P2P) music-sharing community that both pays copyright holders and rewards members who participate in the community.

A limited number of free alpha memberships are now available on a first-come, first-served basis. Visit www.grooveshark.com to request a membership.

Grooveshark offers the best of P2P file sharing, online music stores and music discovery communities in one service. Visitors can browse songs made available 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 from users’ transactions. Additionally, members will be compensated with credits for community participation including sharing their libraries, fixing erroneous song tags, flagging unwanted files, and reviewing concerts, that can then be redeemed for free music.

“The combination of our patented technology platform and unique legal strategy has enabled Grooveshark to be the first company to harness the power of the community in addressing the music industry’s biggest concern – illegal file sharing – while finally fulfilling the desires of millions of consumers for legal, inexpensive access to a virtually unlimited DRM-free music selection,” said Sam Tarantino, 20-year-old founder and CEO of Escape Media Group. “Just as with sites like Wikipedia and MySpace, the ultimate power of Grooveshark comes from the strength of its community, and our availability and quality of music files is only possible through user contribution.”

About Grooveshark

Grooveshark, a peer-to-peer (P2P) music file-sharing community that brokers music transactions between members, is a service of Escape Media Group, Inc. By charging for the songs exchanged between members, Grooveshark will compensate copyright holders and users while providing the convenience and selection of P2P file sharing in an online music community. All Grooveshark files are made available by users so they are free of digital rights management (DRM) technology, allowing users to play the songs they purchase on any type of computer or digital music player. For more information, visit www.grooveshark.com or www.escapemg.com.

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