Grooveshark is terrible. A selection of incomplete albums, badly tagged. I also cannot understand why it hasn't been shut down yet as it must be illegal. Spotify is vastly superior to Grooveshark in every way.

On the other hand, Grooveshark is the only real option in Canada.

If "exciting" means "Actually paying artists and not fucking them over constantly and abusing the DMCA to get away with it" then yes, it certainly is less exciting.

Do you actually have a source concerning paying artists or are you just fabricating everything you say?

http://www.grooveshark.com/labellist

Let's play a game!

Step 1. Pick an artist! I'll go for "Britney Spears". Step 2. Pick an album! I'll go for her latest "Femme Fatale". Step 3. Find that album on Groove Shark! Easy enough, it's right there under "Britney Spears". Step 4. Check which label that album is distributed under, Wikipedia states it's under the label "Jive" (who are a division of Epic, part of Sony). Step 5. Search through that list for any label associated with the ones I just listed.

nothing

So here they are, making money of the latest Britney Spears album, yet they aren't licensed to! What a surprise! This is all Grooveshark do. They will only remove after they get a DMCA request because "oh our users upload it! We didn't know! Those naughty users!". That label list is 95% small labels nobody cares about that very few people listen to the music of, none of the larger labels are on there. I would love to see Grooveshark publish a breakdown of what % of their music (based on listens) is licensed vs. unlicensed. I'd bet $100 it's less than 50%.

"oh but it's too hard to get licenses! It's the big bad RIAA!!". Wait a second, we're posting in a thread about a company doing exactly what Grooveshark should be doing and doing it successfully!

EMI, one of the majors, has an agreement with Grooveshark. Merlin, which some say is the 5th largest label, also has an agreement with Grooveshark. Plus all of those other labels on that list that, to you, may be small but represents a LOT of artists.

Youtube also allows uploading of content and takedowns via DMCA, so that is a bit disingenuous of you to claim it's not standard practice. Labels have every right to be compensated and also do takedowns if they choose, but RIAA normally just blankets takedowns that may or may not be inaccurate.