Warner Music Group Offers Entire Catalog on Imeem

Warner Bros. has announced that it will now be offering its entire music and video catalog for free streaming on the social music site imeem.This is very interesting news considering the fact that, just two short months ago, Warner had announced that it was suing imeem, a site that allows its users to share music playlists and video clips.

In the suit, Warner accused imeem of building a user base by capitalizing on the “illegal use of free music,” when actually, at the time, imeem was issuing a warning to all users not to upload media that they do not own due to copyright violations and infringements. Warner went on further in the case to say, “Imeem is no innocent infringer. It invites imeem’s millions of users to flock to its website to copy, adapt, distribute and perform unlicensed sound recordings and music videos.”

Now, lawsuit aside, imeem users will be able to make playlists that include any of the songs in Warner’s lineup, and imeem, in return, will be paying Warner Music Group a portion of its incoming ad revenue. Users will be able to share tracks with friends on the imeem network, and also add the tracks to their social profiles (Myspace, Facebook, Hi5, etc.) and blogs. It makes you wonder what happened with the lawsuit. What made Warner open their eyes and realize that imeem was actually providing a great opportunity?

The Warner and imeem collaboration marks the first time a major label has offered free ad-supported access to its entire catalog of music and video to such a social community site, something that is long overdue, if you ask me, because there is a lot of potential for record labels to gain additional exposure from the millions of users that sites like this have. Imeem currently acknowledges that over 16 million people are using its free service.

It seems that no one inside the music industry has actually learned from mistakes of the past, since the RIAA still cannot understand the fact that the internet and internet media distribution are here to stay. Online music services actually provide additional means of promotion for songs for labels, and many times at either no cost or lower cost than the “approved” offline methods that record executives use, like print advertising.

Perhaps more record labels will realize that Warner is actually blazing trails with this news and maybe others will start following their lead, instead of finding new services to bring lawsuits against, as the case currently seems to be. These lawsuits do nothing but actually bring more publicity to the services anyway, and give a more negative view of the music industry that has been struggling with internet distribution of songs since the days of the first Napster.

What is your take on this situation?