Guvera was an online music and entertainment streaming service founded in 2008. Guvera had agreements with the music labels in the regions where the product was available, which allowed for legal free music streams. As of May 2017, Guvera has shut down all operations across all remaining Asian markets.

Music streaming

Guvera streamed music and entertainment for its users and held licensing agreements with

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch–American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

, EMI,

Orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of ...

, INgrooves,

IODA The Orchard is an American music and entertainment company, specializing in media distribution, marketing, and sales. It is a subsidiary of Sony Music, based in New York City. In 2019, the company sold off its film and television division, whi ...

, Mushroom/Liberation,

Shock Records Shock Records (now part of Shock Entertainment) is an Australian independent record label. History The three founding members had all previously worked in music retail or distribution: Williams for a Melbourne distribution company called "Musi ...

, Believe Digital; in addition to the rights bodies APRA, AMCOS, BMI,

RightsFlow RightsFlow is an American company that provides organizations, bands, songwriters and individuals with music licensing services and royalty payment solutions. It was founded in 2007. RightsFlow is based in New York City. It was co-founded by Pa ...

, Acodem,

SESAC SESAC is a for-profit performance-rights organization in the United States. Founded in 1930 as the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, it is the second-oldest performance-rights organization in the United States.

, Cash, Emmasacm, Extraphone, Peer, Prs/Impel, Filscap, First Music Publishing, Latinautor, Macp, Megaliner, National Music Publishing, Sabam, Sadaic, Sba, Sacem, Siae, Socan, Sonyatv, Sesac, Sgae, Solar, Warner Chappell, Universal Music Publishing, and Unisys. Guvera distributed DRM-free MP3 downloads with bitrates of 256 and 320 kbit/s. Guvera was also a targeted advertising platform, which targeted ads at relevant music genres. Content could be streamed via brand channels from within Guvera's platform, and the advertisers had a role in the selecting music content. Guvera was available on

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...

s, iOS, Android and the

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design lan ...

History

Guvera was initially funded by AMMA Private Investment out of Australia. Guvera raised about $50m from its base of about 1000 smaller sophisticated investors primarily made up of accounting firms and other financial services businesses. Guvera was incorporated in 2008, and launched beta in Australia February 2010, and in the US March, 2010. Guvera was initially released as a beta to a select group of users by invitation only. On August 2011, Guvera appointed Phil Quartararo as its Global Head of Music. In September 2011 Guvera moved into new headquarters in The Rocket in Robina, Gold Coast, Australia. In March 2012, Guvera created a mobile platform and in December 2012, Guvera released mobile apps for IOS and Android in Australia. An iPad app was then released in August 2013. In March 2014, Guvera signed an agreement with

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, business solutions, and related se ...

to become its worldwide music partner, with Guvera's music streaming service pre-installed onto Lenovo mobile devices. In January 2015 Guvera acquired

Blinkbox Music Blinkbox Music (originally We7) was a free, advertising supported, music streaming service, with over 12 million tracks available for streaming in the UK and Ireland, with content from the music industry, and most independent labels and distribu ...

from

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British Multinational corporation, multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues an ...

. It placed the company into

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, admini ...

in June 2015, having exhausted Blinkbox's financial reserves. The company had bought Blinkbox Music as part of an agreement with Tesco that it would pay its employees a higher rate of redundancy payment if the business failed, which it did not honour. In 2015 the company received a Gold award at Asia App Design Awards. In October 2015 the former employees of

filed a £10m Employment Tribunal case against Guvera. The Tribunal awarded them £3.5m in damages, which Guvera appealed. The Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed the appeal in November 2017. In May 2016 Guvera won an international Gold at the Global App Design Awards. In June 2016 Guvera was blocked from a stockmarket listing. Guvera began operating in only 5 markets: Australia, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates and in July 2016, Darren Herft stepped down as CEO and founder Claes Loberg stepped into the position. On 27 July 2016, the company shut down its operations in its home market of Australia and reiterated its intentions to "focus all efforts in key emerging countries, such as India and Indonesia". On 27 June 2017 it was reported that a federal investigation in to Guvera had started. On 22 November 2017 it was reported that Guvera had lost their appeal against an earlier ruling, which found in favour of the former employees of Blinkbox Music. In January 2018, former CEO Darren Herft was questioned in a public hearing by the Federal Court of Sydney about the company's operation and failure.

References

External links

* {{Australian streaming companies Download websites Companies based on the Gold Coast, Queensland Australian companies established in 2008 Entertainment companies established in 2008 Australian streaming companies 2008 software Android (operating system) software IOS software Jukebox-style media players Online music database clients Software that uses Qt Music streaming services Symbian software Australian music websites Internet properties established in 2008 2017 disestablishments in Australia Entertainment companies disestablished in 2017 Internet properties disestablished in 2017

Music streaming

History

See also

References

External links