The co-creator of online streaming service Aurous, Andrew Sampson, has asked his users to help in the platform’s fight against an aggressive lawsuit from the major labels.
The RIAA, the body representing labels in the US, sued Aurous earlier this month what it calls “willful and egregious copyright infringement”.
It is seeking both an injunction and payment of damages from Aurous – which has been likened to ‘Popcorn Time for Music’ – with a verdict due on October 28.
Sampson is obviously feeling the heat from the case: he’s just sent the below message to registered users of Aurous’s Alpha edition.
Hey There,
Andrew, Co-Founder of Aurous Group here,
As some of you may or may not know, Aurous was launched October 10th. Within hours we received overwhelming support, feedback and messages of gratitude. For this I cannot thank you all enough. For two 20 year old developers, having the support of so many people brought us much joy. The fact people enjoyed our product in such infancy inspired us to give it our all.
Aurous was a project started by myself over two years ago, a weekend project I sought to perfect in my spare time. I never felt like it was good enough, I always felt like it could do more, it was always on the drawing board, every feature on the chopping block.
Then I partnered with my best friend to give Aurous the look it truly deserved, we worked tirelessly whenever we could to build something we really believed in. We fought among ourselves, we had our moments of doubt, but we prospered.
Then on October 14, before the chisel could even be laid to the stone, the RIAA sued us, claiming we were nothing more than a pirate service, a judge ordered us to halt our operations; just like that all our hard work put on hold.
But we could not disagree more with the RIAA, you see there is a reason we chose the .me suffix for our website, Aurous isn’t about money or profits, we don’t need to impress shareholders, Aurous is a player that is being built for you, the artist, the creator, the average listener, we want Aurous to be your go to player-of-players, something that lets you bring all your services together. Not only that, but we had a big goal in mind after launching, create a community of music lovers all around the world. A community that can support each other and do beautiful things.
On October 28th, a judge will decide if Aurous can continue operating, we need all of your support. So tell the RIAA that creativity cannot be censored, that innovation cannot be silenced and most importantly, tell them you #StandWithAurous
– AndrewMusic Business Worldwide
