The online music streaming service Grooveshark closed down its operations recently as part of a settlement deal with various major record companies. The company was wipe clean all of the record companies' copyrighted works and hand over ownership of its website, mobile apps and intellectual property. But now, it seems, they're fighting back.

It has been reported that a select team had attempted to re-open Grooveshark haven't backed up a large percentage of their files, before record companies took them to court again. Now the judge has seized the site domain for a time - but that hasn't stopped the Grooveshark warriors, who have simply set up another domain elsewhere.

Grooveshark logo

"Despite best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service. That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation," Grooveshark originally said, after a U.S judge ruled that the Gainesville, Florida based company's copyright violations on nearly 5,000 songs were made "in bad faith." Nine record companies including Arista Music, Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings, and Warner Bros Records, sued Escape Media Group for infringement in 2011. 

In court papers, the companies called Grooveshark a "linear descendent" of Grokster, LimeWire and Napster, all of which had been shut down following copyright infringement. In the March 25 ruling, a federal judge said the company could be liable to pay upwards of $420 million. 

More: Grooveshark shuts down overnight

'The harder you come at us the stronger we'll fight, and now after this hit we're more determined than ever to keep Grooveshark alive and kicking', the new Grooveshark told TorrentFreak, adding that they have no intention to give in to the 'bullying'.

Grooveshark was founded in 2006 by three college student at the University of Florida. For years it had been a thorn in the side of the major record companies who maintained that the website was illegal. At its height, Grooveshark's catalogue streamed over 1 billion sound files per month, contained over 15 million songs and had 20 million users.