Had he made any public statements regarding trade treaties?
Without knowing what's in the treaties, it's tough to gauge how motivated the behind the scenes players are, and how far they would go.
Just awful. My condolences to his family and friends. Josh accomplished more in 28 years than most do in a lifetime, yet he had so much of his life left to live. Life is precious, and we can't waste a second of it.
My step-sister dated Josh for a while when I was growing up.
My few memories of him consist mostly of Josh explaining technology to me at the dinner table in slow, careful words so that a middle school kid could understand. I remember him laughing with me about the crazy/terrible things I had done to overclock my Android Dev Phone 1 at a time when no one else I knew thought that was interesting. I remember feeling really cool when he hooked me up with free Grooveshark premium to be nice.
It's strange. I haven't seen or heard from him in nearly a decade. He stopped dating my step-sister years ago. He likely wouldn't have remembered my name if you asked him.
I hope this doesn't come off as too selfish, but I hope that I can do things/interact with people that leaves a meaningful bond long after the relationship has "ended" Maybe paying it forward is the best thing to do in his memory.
I don't think that's selfish. When someone dies, it's very normal and healthy to reflect on how we spend our own time, as we're reminded of how precious it is.
Honestly man, other than money that's all we can leave behind. Strive to do your best so that when you leave this world people miss you. That's how you know you did a good job.
I think we don't even realise the impact we can have on people, deliberate or otherwise. Years ago, when I finished highschool, this guy came up to me and said "thanks for acting normal to me, it really helped me through the last four years". I kinda knew he got bullied, but I never really realized how much it bothered him or how my interaction with him affected him. He was just this guy, and on occasion I'd talk to him if I saw him in the hallways.
Since then, I've always had the feeling that you don't really have to try hard to have a meaningful impact on other people's lives. Just be nice in general and you'll have more impact than you can imagine.
I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
Definitely not selfish man. People can only maintain something like 150 relationships at any given time. But if you leave behind something each person you're no longer in contact with can use... Well that makes a real difference for those people, even if it's in a small way.
I love anecdotes like this. It really proves to me that good people live on in the people's lives they touch. It is like a hidden network of people that all hold a piece of the person.
I went to the same high school; he was two years ahead. I didn't know him well, but he was always pleasant. Our high school generated a lot of talented technical types, and the graduating classes remain a pretty small community. My feeling is that the high school reunions just got a little smaller.
I didn't know Josh, but sent Grooveshark an email when I was starting to hack together something cool using their APIs. Quick response, many thanks for being interested and a free year of Grooveshark Premium. A clear culture of enthusiasm and love.
Unless Andres Torres is involved, there's likely no connection:
"While visiting St. Petersburg [to celebrate friend Andres Torres's birthday], Vasquez was shot in the chest after a verbal argument with Andres Torres [in a Publix supermarket]." [0]
I'm having some difficulty discovering the details of Mr. Torres's conviction and sentencing, but it has only been a year and a half since that shooting. My gut tells me that someone convicted of such a thing would serve more than one-and-a-half years.
'Twould be nice if we were more reasonable about the things we make crimes so the justice system had the resources needed to mete out justice in a timely fashion to real dangers to society. :)
I notice that there is a bond assessment for the kidnapping charge, but not the murder charge. Does that mean that he cannot get out on bail, or does it mean that if he posts $150k, he can get out on bail?
I know the knee-jerk reaction is to assume foul play, but I knew him a little bit and he was as healthy as an ox. Or at least he was several months ago the last time I saw him.
I don't know, but it would shock me to the bone if someone could truly get angry enough at a man like him, to try and hurt him. He knew like we all knew, Grooveshark was never going to last, but it reinforced the point that Napster proved and I think that was always one of the major goals of the project.
That being said, I wish all the best to the Grooveshark family. It's never easy to lose someone like that, it always is hard.
The article pretty much rules this out, no idea where you got the foul play angle from:
> "Lori Greenberg, his mother, said Monday he had no health problems and she was told by police who investigated Sunday night that there was no evidence of foul play, injuries or drugs."
When I was in high school, an exceptionally popular varsity athlete was killed in his sleep by an anyurism. It was profoundly shocking to realize that things like that could - and did - happen.
Seemingly-healthy 28 year olds don't typically die at all, much less in non-obvious ways. An unexpected death rarely involves foul play. I'm sure the police are not ruling out possibilities at this point, but I'm equally sure that they are proceeding with the most likely avenues first.
That's a bit misleading. It says there was no evidence of drugs but then goes on to say that the toxicology report would take 2-3 months.
They probably just didn't see any drugs lying around. If he didn't have some sort of undiagnosed medical condition, he may have very well OD'd on something. Research chemicals, xanax and opiate combo, etc... It's fairly common for people to OD on those things and they're all readily available.
Toxicology results often take that long depending on how extensive the testing. Also people always jump right to the conclusion that drug abuse is suspected when they hear this. In a person his age and health with an unexpected death this type of test can be pretty standard and is often at the discretion of next of kin. These tests can help determine drug interactions and maybe assist someone in the future.
To give an anecdotal story. I use Diazepam to control muscle spasms and cramps caused by a neurological disorder.
I took my kids to an amusement park and took Dramamine (over the counter motion sickness medication) so I wouldn't get sick on the rides. About 20 minutes later I was a complete zombie, so bad I sat down and could not get back up because I was in such a stupor.
Turns out these two drugs have some serious interactions with each other, including sudden death and heart failure. To this day I consider myself lucky.
He was one of the most genuinely positive people I've ever known. He believed in you, even when you didn't believe in yourself. Everyone whose life he touched is a better person for it.
I'm going to miss him. He, and my years at Grooveshark, changed my life. He changed all of Gainesville.
An unknown congenital heart defect seems more likely than someone killing him and leaving no visible signs. People with congenital defects can appear completely healthy right up until they die.
Yup. I know this all too well. When I was younger, my best friend was a soccer player and in great shape. He woke up one morning, went to take a shower before school, and just dropped dead in the shower. There was nothing anyone could do.
I know the knee-jerk reaction is to assume foul play
What? Not at all. If I see a report of an untimely and otherwise mysterious death the most likely possibilities are some hidden medical condition or a drug/alcohol mishap. Murder isn't that common, or easy to disguise as an accident.
Josh was an incredible man. He was an inspiration, and everybody that knew him admired him. Always friendly and helpful to everyone. He supported me professionally both while I was at Grooveshark and after I left, and I owe so much to him. This is very sad to hear.
To say that Josh had a positive effect on those around him is a severe understatement. I only conversed with him a few times over the last two years, but am left with a heavy heart this morning after seeing the pain of the Gainesville community.
My heart goes out to his girlfriend and all of those with tears running down their cheeks since last night. Rest in peace, and thanks for all you have done.
Not excessively (it's not excessively long, yes it's normal). Toxicology is usually at least 8 weeks unless we're talking about someone famous enough to have it rushed.
State and local gov't funding level for forensic labs. It costs money to do it correctly, and nobody wants to spend that kind of money, even though we wind up paying more, and imprisoning people wrongly.
Pathetic they can get millions to militarize the police, or a super high tech bomb squad vehicle/robots/xrays to investigate a bunch of abandoned suitcases, but they are suddenly poor when it comes to financing something that could actually save lives.
in the case where, say, a serial rapist/killer hasn't been caught, there can be a backlog of untested DNA from other crime scenes that may identify the suspect, but haven't been tested because of the backlog.
I used to work at a drug testing facility. Our typical test urine and saliva took 3 major steps.
1) Negative Screening (6hrs) - Figuring out what compounds show up initially. Special dyes were use to identify potential compounds. Not conclusive but narrows down the next steps
2) Extraction (10 - 18 hrs) - Separate the target compounds from the rest of compounds/proteins in the sample fluid.
3) Postive Certification via GCMS (2hrs - 16hrs) - The extracted compounds were ionized (broken into predictable pieces) then sent through the GCMS to where a signal signature determined.
Each step included equipment expensive materials and equipment. The last step is was the most expensive and error prone. The GCMS machines need maintenance and calibration. They cost anywhere from $30,000 to $70,000.
Sometimes we lost samples because the machine would lose it's calibration and wouldn't be enough to start another set. We took in samples on a national scale, but I can see how a smaller non-commercial lab accumulate a large backlog.
This was like 10 years ago but I don't see the technology changing that much.
It depends on the lab's backlog. When I worked as an evidence technician, it would sometimes be six months or more between dropping off the samples and getting the results. I had one murder case that took nearly two years to get back, longer than my time in that position.
I interned at Grooveshark two summers ago; Josh incredibly changed my life for the better. The Summer with the Sharks program was transformative and catapulted me out of Louisiana and into the world of tech. He's such a happy and charismatic personality; the company outings, like going to Disneyworld, are some of my best memories.
Talk about a life gone too soon. I'm pouring one out for Josh tonight.
Slidell. I went to school at LaTech for a year and a half. I I recently found a fellow Google intern who's from Slidell as well, but we'd never met previously because we went to rival highschools.
I went to Slidell High; the other Google intern went to Northshore. And now one more from Slidell. I love how the internet brought us all together even though we were previously so close but didn't know it.
Seconded; speculating about a person's demise before they're even in the ground is in stupendously bad taste. Family and friends (and others) don't want to read that crap. Give it a rest, people.
I would have no problem with public speculation about the manner of or motives behind the death of any of my friends or family.
Most speculation is a bunch of hot air, but such threads also provide a place to talk about the deceased and his works, and to talk about other, related things. I, for one, appreciate the vast majority of conversation attached to this HN post.
On several scuba and climbing sites I visit, there is a strict separation between mourning a death and speculating/analyzing the cause.
It may be a little different here, but the experience with risky sports is that a thread examining the cause may include suggestions that the person was somewhat at fault.
Many of the people mourning someones passing would prefer such discussions not be interleaved with celebrating their accomplishments or friends grieving the loss.
I certainly think both conversations should happen. But humans being human, it isn't always the best thing for them to happen in the same place at the same time.
First, my condolences to friends and family. Josh clearly touched a lot of people in his life. And Yes, it's a terrific custom. Remember there will probably be many folks who knew Josh that might stumble into this discussion (I hope so, as the testimonials might provide some comfort.)
Well that leaves it in the hands of caring individuals, intelligent sentient beings, to refrain from speculation here.
No need to call for a tech-solution, when the solution is simply to be found in human decency and kindness.
Having gone through a quite similar loss myself recently, I view things maybe slightly different and would not have liked reading/hearing speculation about fathers death while mourning his loss and having to deal with the shock of his last farewell.
Your opening sentence implies that anyone who desires to engage in speculation is not a caring individual. Perhaps this is not what you intended.
I, too have lost enemies, acquaintances, friends, and family. My position regarding public speculation as to any aspect of each one's demise was the same then as it is now.
Metafilter's solution to the desire of some to engage in speculation and of others to not intermingle that speculation with well-wishes and sympathy is first and foremost a social one. Moderators and community participants steer misdirected conversation to the appropriate thread.
It is true that Mefi's software[0] makes this guidance far easier to achieve than HN's software [1]. Frankly, I'm quietly calling for a technical change that will allow the HN community to enact a large cultural change.
The technical change alone is woefully insufficient. Without a corresponding cultural change, speculation and well-wishes will remain intermixed.
[0] Anything posted by a member appears on the front page. The latest X posts are displayed on the front page. Posts fall off of the front page as new ones come in.
[1] Member posts must receive a certain -unknown- number of upvotes to appear on the front page. Posts that appear on the front page require a constant stream of additional votes in order to stay on the front page.
> ...speculating on cause of death is nonetheless considered in extremely poor taste.
This feeling is far from universal. Never forget that most of us live in our own social bubble.
It would very be nice if -as braythwayt mentioned a little bit earlier- we could section off speculation from condolences and remembrances. Unfortunately, HN -with its relatively short lived posts, flat posting namespace, and votes-make-topics-stick-on-the-frontpage mechanism- is not able to meet this need.
As soon as I read the headline I was scared to read Josh's name in the article. I had the opportunity to interview him for a book, and I placed his interview at the very beginning of the book because I personally found it one of the most interesting. At the end of that phone call I thought to myself: if I was in Florida I would love to work with this guy. RIP Josh.
Josh taught me that people, above everything else, are the most important part of a company. Sage advice that may seem obvious but too many fail to remember.
I only knew him briefly, but I'm grateful for the chance to have known him. The other commenters are right, he was an incredibly positive person, and he did change Gainesville for the better. A great loss. My thoughts are with his friends and his family.
I've never known him. I'm not from that side of earth and I never knew about Grooveshark. But I feel I've lost him; we've lost him. With teary eyes, my good wishes go to all who share this loss in substance or in spirit.
Rest in peace Josh.
Damn, grooveshark was like the best thing since Napster. I was able to rip ton of music from it. I'll never pay for music unless it's an independent artist that needs the money. Taylor Swift can suck it.
while this comment is ridiculously ignorant and knee-jerk on the surface almost everyone under 30 subscribes to this even if they don't state it publicly or even believe it themselves.
I'll probably get downvoted to oblivion for this, but who cares...
I think paying money that ends up in the pockets of large record companies who then spend that money to pass laws that break the internet is morally reprehensible. I think buying music in this day and age is immoral. The faster the music industry collapses, the better off we all are. I am sorry if some artists have to pay for this too in some way, but we're all (both audience and artists) better off without the record companies, and step 1 is to stop giving them our money.
That's a perfectly fine position. However, if the record companies are so abhorrent, isn't Step 0 to stop listening to their music at all? Plus a Step 2 being some form of action to attempt to change the situation. Without that Step 0, it's a bit like saying "I hate Big Theater" while sneaking in the back door to enjoy the movies.
No, I don't think that's a valid Step 0. Here's a simple counter-argument:
If we were talking about Air Companies instead of Record Companies, you wouldn't say that Step 0 is to stop breathing air. You'd agree that in an environment where "stealing air" without a licence has been criminalised in some way, it is nevertheless acceptable to continue breathing even if it's illegal and costing revenues from the Air Companies.
So then the question reduces to: how comparable is music to air?
Obviously that depends on the person, but I'd argue that it's precisely those for whom music is most important, who have a relationship to music similar to one's relationship to air: it's a necessary part of life. Those are precisely the people most likely to still be spending significant sums of money supporting the record companies, and my argument is that those people have a moral duty to stop supporting the record companies.
Much like in the air analogy, though, that doesn't mean that Step 0 is for them to stop breathing or listening to music. I think Step 0, 1, 2, 3 and all the rest, consist of operating as if the record companies did not exist, and wait them out. Once the record companies have gone bust, we can start again with a system that's worth supporting.
Just my opinion, but I think it's very defensible.
It isn't all man vs. the machine. There are viable ways to give artists money without giving it to record companies. You can also buy music secondhand without giving money to record companies. And not every record company is evil, it's mostly the Big Five (or however many it is these days); there are thousands of non-subsidiary record companies that are totally friendly.
How does buying music second-hand give money to the artists? I agree it doesn't give money to the record companies, but it doesn't give it to the artists, either...
While one cannot stop breathing air, if there are thousands upon thousands of "air artists" and a handful of Big Air Companies, one can stop breathing air from artists who distribute their air through the Big Air Companies and switch to breathing air from small, independent air artists who distribute their air directly to consumers.
I don't see it as a breathe or don't breathe dichotomy. Plenty of independent artists one can support, assuming you find their air quality palatable.
as a musician i agree! but spotify et al comes under record companies, this is why i want to build something open source for musicians that replaces itunes.
If I were to list all the great bands/music I discovered on Grooveshark, and all the music from my childhood that I rediscovered, I would surely run into some kind of comment length limit here.
"Lori Greenberg, his mother, said Monday he had no health problems and she was told by police who investigated Sunday night that there was no evidence of foul play, injuries or drugs."
Then.. what the hell happened?
I don't want to play conspiracy too hard here -- could be she's hiding some health issues? but given the recording industry's links with aggressive legislation (TPP, piracy laws), this makes me wonder:
"Several record companies had sued the online music streaming service over copyright violations."
Sad. Grooveshark always allowed me to find stuff I had a hard time finding otherwise. Good memories with my son when he was between one and two dancing in our little apartment living room to music from grooveshark. Condolences to family and friends. I don't know him, but he made something that has a part of several really good memories.
So sad. Not just the loss for his family and friends, but to lose an entrepreneur with all that wisdom that comes from the experience he had. We may have also lost the several more great startups that he would have created. RIP.
162 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 224 ms ] threadMy few memories of him consist mostly of Josh explaining technology to me at the dinner table in slow, careful words so that a middle school kid could understand. I remember him laughing with me about the crazy/terrible things I had done to overclock my Android Dev Phone 1 at a time when no one else I knew thought that was interesting. I remember feeling really cool when he hooked me up with free Grooveshark premium to be nice.
It's strange. I haven't seen or heard from him in nearly a decade. He stopped dating my step-sister years ago. He likely wouldn't have remembered my name if you asked him.
Still, I feel like a friend is gone.
Since then, I've always had the feeling that you don't really have to try hard to have a meaningful impact on other people's lives. Just be nice in general and you'll have more impact than you can imagine.
And currently, what is in the Sun article is all we know.
"While visiting St. Petersburg [to celebrate friend Andres Torres's birthday], Vasquez was shot in the chest after a verbal argument with Andres Torres [in a Publix supermarket]." [0]
I'm having some difficulty discovering the details of Mr. Torres's conviction and sentencing, but it has only been a year and a half since that shooting. My gut tells me that someone convicted of such a thing would serve more than one-and-a-half years.
[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/eddy-vasquez-murdered-2013-11
'Twould be nice if we were more reasonable about the things we make crimes so the justice system had the resources needed to mete out justice in a timely fashion to real dangers to society. :)
I notice that there is a bond assessment for the kidnapping charge, but not the murder charge. Does that mean that he cannot get out on bail, or does it mean that if he posts $150k, he can get out on bail?
I don't know, but it would shock me to the bone if someone could truly get angry enough at a man like him, to try and hurt him. He knew like we all knew, Grooveshark was never going to last, but it reinforced the point that Napster proved and I think that was always one of the major goals of the project.
That being said, I wish all the best to the Grooveshark family. It's never easy to lose someone like that, it always is hard.
> "Lori Greenberg, his mother, said Monday he had no health problems and she was told by police who investigated Sunday night that there was no evidence of foul play, injuries or drugs."
People can be killed in ways that are difficult to trace, especially before there is the benefit of autopsy results.
I am not suggesting that this is what happened in this case, I'm just saying that it is far from entirely ruled out.
They probably just didn't see any drugs lying around. If he didn't have some sort of undiagnosed medical condition, he may have very well OD'd on something. Research chemicals, xanax and opiate combo, etc... It's fairly common for people to OD on those things and they're all readily available.
Hard to believe it takes so long in the 21st century. Is that bureaucracy or science?
To give an anecdotal story. I use Diazepam to control muscle spasms and cramps caused by a neurological disorder.
I took my kids to an amusement park and took Dramamine (over the counter motion sickness medication) so I wouldn't get sick on the rides. About 20 minutes later I was a complete zombie, so bad I sat down and could not get back up because I was in such a stupor.
Turns out these two drugs have some serious interactions with each other, including sudden death and heart failure. To this day I consider myself lucky.
I'm going to miss him. He, and my years at Grooveshark, changed my life. He changed all of Gainesville.
Undiagnosed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
It appears to be Florida law, at least (http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...).
What? Not at all. If I see a report of an untimely and otherwise mysterious death the most likely possibilities are some hidden medical condition or a drug/alcohol mishap. Murder isn't that common, or easy to disguise as an accident.
Sad loss for his family and friends.
My heart goes out to his girlfriend and all of those with tears running down their cheeks since last night. Rest in peace, and thanks for all you have done.
This seems like a long time, is it normal?
But maybe tests are done in stages? Like, if nothing obvious shows up on first tests then some other ones are done?
It'd be interesting to see what the bottlenecks are and how to improve them.
http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/05/commission-looks-misc...
Harris county, Texas just recently got a new one because of similarly disturbing corruption and incompetence.
http://www.harriscountytx.gov/ifs/
in the case where, say, a serial rapist/killer hasn't been caught, there can be a backlog of untested DNA from other crime scenes that may identify the suspect, but haven't been tested because of the backlog.
1) Negative Screening (6hrs) - Figuring out what compounds show up initially. Special dyes were use to identify potential compounds. Not conclusive but narrows down the next steps
2) Extraction (10 - 18 hrs) - Separate the target compounds from the rest of compounds/proteins in the sample fluid.
3) Postive Certification via GCMS (2hrs - 16hrs) - The extracted compounds were ionized (broken into predictable pieces) then sent through the GCMS to where a signal signature determined.
Each step included equipment expensive materials and equipment. The last step is was the most expensive and error prone. The GCMS machines need maintenance and calibration. They cost anywhere from $30,000 to $70,000.
Sometimes we lost samples because the machine would lose it's calibration and wouldn't be enough to start another set. We took in samples on a national scale, but I can see how a smaller non-commercial lab accumulate a large backlog.
This was like 10 years ago but I don't see the technology changing that much.
Talk about a life gone too soon. I'm pouring one out for Josh tonight.
Most speculation is a bunch of hot air, but such threads also provide a place to talk about the deceased and his works, and to talk about other, related things. I, for one, appreciate the vast majority of conversation attached to this HN post.
It may be a little different here, but the experience with risky sports is that a thread examining the cause may include suggestions that the person was somewhat at fault.
Many of the people mourning someones passing would prefer such discussions not be interleaved with celebrating their accomplishments or friends grieving the loss.
I certainly think both conversations should happen. But humans being human, it isn't always the best thing for them to happen in the same place at the same time.
Unfortunately, the method by which posts get to and stay on the front page ensure that HN will never be able to perform this sort of segmentation.
No need to call for a tech-solution, when the solution is simply to be found in human decency and kindness.
Having gone through a quite similar loss myself recently, I view things maybe slightly different and would not have liked reading/hearing speculation about fathers death while mourning his loss and having to deal with the shock of his last farewell.
I, too have lost enemies, acquaintances, friends, and family. My position regarding public speculation as to any aspect of each one's demise was the same then as it is now.
Metafilter's solution to the desire of some to engage in speculation and of others to not intermingle that speculation with well-wishes and sympathy is first and foremost a social one. Moderators and community participants steer misdirected conversation to the appropriate thread.
It is true that Mefi's software[0] makes this guidance far easier to achieve than HN's software [1]. Frankly, I'm quietly calling for a technical change that will allow the HN community to enact a large cultural change.
The technical change alone is woefully insufficient. Without a corresponding cultural change, speculation and well-wishes will remain intermixed.
[0] Anything posted by a member appears on the front page. The latest X posts are displayed on the front page. Posts fall off of the front page as new ones come in.
[1] Member posts must receive a certain -unknown- number of upvotes to appear on the front page. Posts that appear on the front page require a constant stream of additional votes in order to stay on the front page.
Perhaps not, but speculating on cause of death is nonetheless considered in extremely poor taste. Most people _would_ have a problem with it.
This feeling is far from universal. Never forget that most of us live in our own social bubble.
It would very be nice if -as braythwayt mentioned a little bit earlier- we could section off speculation from condolences and remembrances. Unfortunately, HN -with its relatively short lived posts, flat posting namespace, and votes-make-topics-stick-on-the-frontpage mechanism- is not able to meet this need.
I only knew him briefly, but I'm grateful for the chance to have known him. The other commenters are right, he was an incredibly positive person, and he did change Gainesville for the better. A great loss. My thoughts are with his friends and his family.
Josh created a service that was a pleasure to use. I discovered so much music using it.
When Grooveshark closed, I moved to Spotify, which, IMO, has a very long way to go before it becomes what Grooveshark was in terms of music diversity.
[citation needed]
I think paying money that ends up in the pockets of large record companies who then spend that money to pass laws that break the internet is morally reprehensible. I think buying music in this day and age is immoral. The faster the music industry collapses, the better off we all are. I am sorry if some artists have to pay for this too in some way, but we're all (both audience and artists) better off without the record companies, and step 1 is to stop giving them our money.
If we were talking about Air Companies instead of Record Companies, you wouldn't say that Step 0 is to stop breathing air. You'd agree that in an environment where "stealing air" without a licence has been criminalised in some way, it is nevertheless acceptable to continue breathing even if it's illegal and costing revenues from the Air Companies.
So then the question reduces to: how comparable is music to air?
Obviously that depends on the person, but I'd argue that it's precisely those for whom music is most important, who have a relationship to music similar to one's relationship to air: it's a necessary part of life. Those are precisely the people most likely to still be spending significant sums of money supporting the record companies, and my argument is that those people have a moral duty to stop supporting the record companies.
Much like in the air analogy, though, that doesn't mean that Step 0 is for them to stop breathing or listening to music. I think Step 0, 1, 2, 3 and all the rest, consist of operating as if the record companies did not exist, and wait them out. Once the record companies have gone bust, we can start again with a system that's worth supporting.
Just my opinion, but I think it's very defensible.
I don't see it as a breathe or don't breathe dichotomy. Plenty of independent artists one can support, assuming you find their air quality palatable.
Grooveshark was a fantastic service and the music brought joy to thousands of music lovers. Thank you.
RIP man, your work touched lives.
Then.. what the hell happened?
I don't want to play conspiracy too hard here -- could be she's hiding some health issues? but given the recording industry's links with aggressive legislation (TPP, piracy laws), this makes me wonder:
"Several record companies had sued the online music streaming service over copyright violations."