Last week, Grooveshark announced that it would be closing up shop after losing a lengthy legal battle with major record labels. In order to avoid facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit, the streaming service agreed to shut down effective immediately and relinquish all its mobile apps and intellectual property.

Many users were quick to mourn the loss of the company, while others scrambled to find ways to retrieve their playlists and song collections, no doubt built up during Grooveshark’s seven-year run. Now, just days later, it looks as though those worrying fans’ prayers might’ve been answered: Grooveshark is back online. Well, sort of.



A replica platform, which can be found at Grooveshark.io, is up and running, and promises to “reproduce the old Grooveshark UI in its entirety” in time, according to BGR.com, who claims to have spoken with someone involved with the new project. Just how can such a site sprout up so quickly?

Here’s what the Grooveshark IO source — who goes by the name “Shark” — told the tech outlet:

“Well, I started backing up all the content on the website when I started suspecting that Grooveshark’s demise is close and my suspicion was confirmed a few days later when they closed. By the time they closed I have already backed up 90% of the content on the site and I’m now working on getting the remaining 10%.”

“Shark” added, “We have all the servers/domains infrastructure in place, it’s going to be a roller coaster and we’re ready for it,” referring to the legal hurdles that will surely surface in the coming days. It’s unclear whether “Shark” and the rest of his/her current Grooveshark IO team were former Grooveshark employees or just music-loving folk who know a thing or two about building websites.

Still, considering the fact that major labels and a federal judge were ready to throw costly lawsuits Grooveshark’s way, and that the original company’s copyrights/patents have been seized, it’s too soon to tell whether Grooveshark IO will be able to legally stick around.