Warner, Imeem, agree to agree
p2pnet news | music:- Warner Music Group has decided if you can’t beat ‘em, sign ‘em up, dropping its lawsuit against music sharing site Imeem.
Instead Warner, the US member of the Big 4 organised music cartel, will offer up its entire music and video catalog in a revenue-sharing deal, says Mashable.
Predictably, with Warner as a partner, Imeem now comes fully loaded with DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control and advertising.
It, “automatically identifies uploaded content and determines whether the content owner has permitted streaming on Imeem,” says Reuters.
“The service will distribute a share of the advertising revenue to the artist or record label.
“Users will still be able to listen to their own songs in full, but if they share a song Imeem will now only play a 30-second clip unless the artist or label has given permission for it to play in full.”
The deal is the, “latest sign of a rapprochement between record labels and the Web companies they once viewed with suspicion,” says the Wall Street Journal.
Actually, “viewed with suspicion” is hardly the correct phrase.
Driven by their insatiable greed, EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music totally blew it when Napster – the original, that is, not the pale and wan look-alike that’s having so much trouble surviving – first turned up online.
They tried to crush P2P instead of embracing it as the 21st century distribution vehicle and now they’re trying to retrench, giving little away as little as possible, at the same time grabbing all they can get.
“Imeem, based in San Francisco, lets users build and share online playlists of digital music,” says the WSJ. “Warner filed copyright-infringement charges against the company in May …”
And as Mashable notes:
This isn’t the first time Warner has backed down from an initial stance of legal terror. AnywhereCD faced a pretty serious court battle with Warner when it launched and had included music from Warner’s catalog, to Warner’s dismay. When it comes down to it, Warner may be softening a bit at the edges, looking to partner with online communities and music sites instead of suing them all dry.
It still hasn’t reached the point of free love that EMI is now promoting, but it looks like Warner is definitely becoming more cooperative and putting more resources into monetizing these online networks instead of paying court fees.
Imeem recently teaming up with Palm Pictures, the story adds.
(Thanks, Angel)
Also See:
Mashable – Warner Drops Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Imeem, July 11, 2007
Reuters – Imeem Web social network offers ad-backed music, June 21, 2007
Wall Street Journal – Warner Drops Suit, Makes Deal With imeem, July 11, 2007
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July 12th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Hi Jon. Way to go with the new site! Totally off topic, I’ve noticed that when you post a story your *Use free p2pnet newsfeeds* links at the bottom change from one minute to the next with the second part of the first line becoming a new line a few minutes later. I’m wondering why that is? Just curious.
July 12th, 2007 at 10:58 am
For various reasons I can’t write directly into the WordPress edit box and I have to add those lines separately, after the story is published. I’ll eventually figure out to get around that : )
Cheers!