Does Youtube? Grooveshark complied with DMCA; the only thing they really shouldn't have done is upload music illegally as a policy (by the company itself). But I'm sure there are people who now work at Youtube that also uploaded music there in the past, it's just not official.
So yeah it's a bit more piratey than other upload sites, but that could have been solved with a policy change to not upload music illegally from corporate accounts. For artists they were much more accessible than Spotify currently is, but they hated labels for taking a huge cut and didn't make deals up front. I can't say I disagree with them. I still miss Grooveshark.
> but they hated labels for taking a huge cut and didn't make deals up front. I can't say I disagree with them.
I really think you're misguided here. Sure, evil labels are a welcome narrative for Grooveshark's very illegitimate service. I'm sure you're already familiar with these stories, but to get a taste of how Grooveshark used to deal with artists read this: https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2011/dec/12/groo...
Youtube on the other hand is actually used by artists as a promotional tool. And if it isn't their takedown process actually works. Almost too good judging by the stories about false positives in their ContentID system.
Let's call it what it was: Plain piracy. Grooveshark had no rights and licensing in place for the content they streamed.