The popular music-streaming website Grooveshark has ceased operations, following a lawsuit that forced it to give up ownership of its website, digital platform apps, and intellectual property which includes its patents and copyrights, according to The New York Times.

This move comes after the company was sued by various major record companies over the past four years. It successfully defended itself from a lawsuit in 2009 citing the tenants of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which shielded companies from lawsuits for copyright infringements. This is largely because the content could have been uploaded by others and streamed from the site.

The Grooveshark website posted a statement that announced its closing, which says in part, "We started out nearly 10 years ago with the goal of helping fans share and discover music. But 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."

As part of the agreement stemming from the lawsuit, the company was also required to delete all digital copyrighted content from its site and hand over all ownership, the statement said.

Representing labels Sony, Universal and Warner in the lawsuit, the Recording Industry Association of America said in a statement posted by The New York Times, "This is an important victory for artists and the entire music industry."

According to Reuters, just last week, before the trial for damages in the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa found Grooveshark founders Samuel Tarantino and Joshua Greenberg liable for their willful actions, which they instructed employees to perform the uploads despite the possible legal ramifications.

Griesa instructed jurors they could award up to $150,000 per song on the website, which could leave Grooveshark's parent company, Escape Media Group, on the hook for around $736 million. He also told them they could award less per song.

Grooveshark claimed to have had around 30 million users sharing in excess of 15 million songs.