Universal Music have today announced a licencing deal with one of this years fastest growing social networking sites, imeem. The agreement will provide
imeem's 19 million strong community with Universal's entire catalogue of digital music and video at no cost.
Working on an advertising-supported model, imeem users will be able to stream (but not download) music and videos from Kanye West, Gwen Stefani, The Pussycat Dolls, Black Eye Peas and Amy Winehouse among others.
?This is a significant step forward for imeem and a defining moment for social networking and ad-supported music,? commented Dalton Caldwell, founder and CEO of imeem. ?imeem has pioneered a way to bring fans, bands and brands together in a way that?s good for everyone. Our agreement with UMG firmly establishes our position as the leading social media network.?
imeem's deal with Universal, which starts today, follows similar agreements with Warner Music Group, Sony BMG and EMI.
According to a
press release issued today, brands currently advertising on the imeem website include Apple, Nike, Microsoft, AT&T Wireless, Toyota Scion, T-Mobile and Puma. Universal Music will join Warner, Sony BMG and EMI in sharing the revenue generated from advertisements played alongside songs and videos.
Doug Morris, chairman and chief executive officer of UMG says, ?Universal Music Group is committed to exploring new ways for consumers to discover and enjoy our artists? music online. imeem has developed an innovative way to make our artists' music a central part of the social networking experience. More importantly, they?ve done so the right way -- by working with UMG to provide an exciting musical experience for consumers, while ensuring that our artists are fairly compensated for the use of their works.?
In
March 2007 imeem announced a partnership with SNOCAP,a music technology company to create a trusted content identification registry system in order to properly compensate artists for sharing their work on the social networking site. The SNOCAP technology automatically identifies content uploaded by imeem users and then verifies that the artist has permitted its use on the site. In May imeem was faced with a major
law suit when Warner Music attempted to sue for copyright violation. The service launched in
June 2007 and Warner soon dropped the law suit and signed on as the first major partner.
Last month, Warner
pulled out of providing content to handset manufacturing giant Nokia's new mobile-focused social networking site Mosh, due to concerns about illegal downloads. This is only one of many such instances as the music industry struggle to monetise digital music amid rapidly falling CD sales.
In 2006, Universal
sued News Corporation's MySpace for infringing its copyrights which followed claims against user generated content (UGC) sites Bolt and Grouper. This was preceded earlier that year by Universal
threatening to sue YouTube (the day before the popular UGC site was purchased by Google) before coming to an agreement to share advertising revenue, receive a licencsing fee for its content and also equity in the company.
In a move away from the labels, September saw solo artist Prince initiate a
law suit against YouTube (and other popular social networking sites) for unathorised use of his music.
Thus far, other licencing agreements have been made by Sony BMG with CBS owned
Last.fm and
MySpace. imeem launched in March 2006 and is the only social music site to have such partnerships with the World's four largest music production companies.
In November imeem became one of the first social networking sites to
sign up for Google's OpenSocial technology.