Music-streaming service Grooveshark has announced that it is shutting down. The closure is part of a deal worked out with record companies who sued the service claiming it was harbouring pirated pop.

In a statement on its website, Grooveshark said it had failed to get licenses for the copyrighted music shared on the service. It has also agreed to delete the music it offered and hand the website and apps over to the record industry.

“We made very serious mistakes,” said the statement. “We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service. That was wrong. We apologise. Without reservation,” it said.

The shut-down also ends the legal action started by Warner, Sony, and Universal Music in 2011. It was accused of illegally sharing almost 5,000 songs which meant that, if it had been found guilty, would have faced a damages bill of up to $736m.

Grooveshark was set up in 2006 and had, at its peak, about 35 million users per month. Grooveshark employees also uploaded songs to expand the library.

Source: BBC