Grooveshark, a Music Service, Is Sued Again EMI Music, the only major record label to license its music to Grooveshark, has sued the company in New York State Supreme Court, saying that the service owes $300,000 plus interest for nonpayment on a promissory note. As a result, EMI says, it has terminated its licensing agreement with Grooveshark. In a statement, Grooveshark said: "Grooveshark was recently forced to make the difficult decision to part ways with EMI due to EMI's currently unsustainable streaming rates and EMI's pending merger with Universal Music Group, which we consider monopolistic and in violation of antitrust laws. To date, Grooveshark has paid over $2.6 million to EMI, but we have yet to find sustainable streaming rates. The suit was first reported on Tuesday by CNet, a technology Web site. Grooveshark lets people upload songs to the company's servers, which other users can then stream for free. It has 35 million users, and argues that its service is legal under the terms of the Digital Copyright Millennium Act, the federal law that gives "safe harbor" to sites that host third-party material if they comply with takedown notices from copyright holders. But Grooveshark has frequently been sued by record companies. The Universal Music Group has sued it twice for copyright infringement: in New York state court in 2010, and in federal court last year, with Sony Music Entertainment and the Warner Music Group later joining the federal case. Grooveshark only got its licensing deal with EMI as part of a settlement in another lawsuit. Grooveshark said that because EMI had terminated its licenses, it would destroy the master recordings from the label, but that under the terms of the Digital Copyright Millenium Act, EMI would need to send individual takedown notices for any songs uploaded by Grooveshark's users. According to EMI's latest complaint, filed on Monday in Supreme Court in Manhattan, Grooveshark agreed last November to pay $450,000 in nine installments over the next year. It made the first three payments, totaling $150,000, but last month failed to make a fourth, the company's complaint says. EMI has asked the court for summary judgment in the case, arguing that the terms of the promissory note dictate that if Grooveshark fails to make any payment, the label can demand the full principal of the debt plus interest. EMI believes that without the licensing agreement, Grooveshark must remove the label's songs from its service. But that question is being litigated in the two infringement cases being led by Universal. In a separate case, EMI's publishing division sued Grooveshark in January for failing to pay royalties. Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.