MySpace CEO, Owen Van Natta, announced today that MySpace Music has completed a deal to acquire certain assets of imeem – a leading social media music service.
Eliot Van Buskirk of Wired says, “You were fun while you lasted, imeem, rest in peace — although it looks like you’ll rest in pieces instead.”
Van Buskirk also comments on the reasons for the service’s demise:
According to insiders, imeem, which was already struggling to cover its music licensing fees in a weak advertising market, was brought to its knees by a lawsuit from independent music consortium The Orchard that accused imeem of playing TVT Records’ music without the proper licensing. The lawsuit asked for the maximum penalty of $150,000 per infringed song; imeem apparently thought it had a case, but lacked the funds to pursue it.
Imeem visitors are now being directed to MySpace Music, and imeem users who have set up profiles and playlists will have them migrated over to the MySpace Music platform at some point soon.