Imeem Gets a $1.77-Million Fine

Imeem is the prime example that the online music business is far from a safe bet even now, as it's beginning to look like 2010 may finally be the year when music streaming services become viable businesses for the companies running them as well as for the users. The free streaming service has been acquired by MySpace Music for a paltry sum, around $1 million, and has since been dismantled. And just when it looked like it couldn't get any worse, the site gets a fine for $1.77 million in a copyright infringement suit.

The Orchard Enterprises, a music distribution company, filed a lawsuit against the company earlier this autumn over alleged copyright infringement charges. Things aren't exactly clear cut though, as Imeem is accused of going over the bounds of a licensing agreement by streaming full songs instead of the previews which the license apparently allowed it to. Imeem decided to skip the hearings altogether leading the judge to issue a default judgment and fine the company.

However, the consequences of the decision are a bit murky as it looks like MySpace wasn't involved in the lawsuit which would indicate that the assets it acquired from Imeem weren't part of the legal battle. Because of the legal and financial troubles, MySpace Music only bought select assets from the company, the most valuable of which are the brand and the actual users, which numbered about 16 million.

But now that Imeem itself has been closed down, it looks like the name will be gone also, as users are migrated over to MySpace Music. Imeem.com now redirects to a MySpace Music landing page which informs the users that their playlists will be migrated to the MySpace service and that they should join the free music streaming service as an alternative. “We are working hard to migrate all of your playlists over to MySpace Music. We’ll email you about that as soon as we have more details,” the page reads, but no further details are known at this time.