By Stevie Smith Jul 13, 2007, 13:33 GMT
Yet another music-based copyright infringement dispute has been filed under ‘settled’ this week following news that Warner Music Group Corp. has come to a content agreement with Imeem in exchange for ad revenue, reports the LA Times.
Warner Music initially filed a lawsuit against the online social networking service back in May of this year, in which it accused Imeem of allowing millions of computer users to openly share copyrighted content without having first acquired permission.
New York-based Warner Music claimed that Imeem was guilty of allowing its users to distribute content due to its deliberate failure to implement a system designed to halt the illegal sharing of copyrighted material.
Legal pressure asserted by Warner Music has now led to a settlement with Imeem, which will see the social networking service licensed to make Warner music and video content available to its users for free, on-demand streaming in return for a percentage of the site’s revenue. Financial details related to the deal have not been revealed.
Imeem, which first launched in October 2004 offering instant messaging and file-sharing software, has since grown into something similar to that of Flickr and Google’s YouTube. It now allows its 16 million users to post and share a variety of content including blogs, photos, music, and video.
Mike Barash, a spokesman for the San Francisco-based service, confirmed that Warner Music is the first major music label to grant licensing to Imeem, though it does have similar content agreements with various independent music companies and film studios. He went on to say that the social networking site was actively pursuing discussions with other major music labels regarding potential licensing deals.
Since the copyright infringement lawsuit brought against Imeem in May, the site has implemented a Snocap Inc. audio monitoring system that filters out copyrighted content. Mr. Barash revealed that Imeem is working towards a system that will also filter video-based copyrighted material.
Internet tracking specialist Hitwise places Imeem as the fourth most popular multimedia destination in the US behind YouTube, Google Video, and MySpace Videos.
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