Warner Music Decides That Imeem Doesn't Have Enough Publicity

from the publicity-by-lawsuit dept

Wed, May 16th 2007 12:24am — Mike Masnick

The recording industry really is impressive in its near complete inability to learn from previous mistakes. Every time it sues or tries to shut down some service, it first attracts much more attention to that service and then, even if it's successful in shutting it down, all of the users move on to more underground services that are even less likely to provide the industry with new opportunities for profit. The latest such case is Imeem, a moderately popular service for users to create playlists of music, videos and photos and share it with others. As far as I can tell, users can't download from the service -- they can only stream and listen to or view others' playlists. There are, obviously, a ton of legitimate purposes for such services -- though, you'd never know it listening to the lawyers at Warner Music Group who have decided to sue the company, claiming that it's making money on "the illegal use of free music." Once again, this is actually a service that is helping to get people to promote the recording industry's music for them (at no cost!) and the recording industry's reaction is to sue it. The industry has done this over and over and over and over again, and so far all its done is make the situation much, much worse. Who in their right mind would think that it would make sense to keep doing it? You would hope that the folks behind this decision are so crafty as to realize that by suing it, they're giving it more publicity that will lead to even more people using the service to promote its music... but it's difficult to believe that the decision makers here are able to think that far ahead.

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17 Comments

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Anonymous Poster (profile), 16 May 2007 @ 12:39am

Does this count as a Streisand Effect case?
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Paul, 16 May 2007 @ 1:17am

I'd never heard of the site before, now they have a new member... I'd say yes, Streisand effect in play! Seriously, though I don't understand the reasoning here - if the music only stream, won't it just be covered as an internet radio station, and pay licencing fees to the record companies anyway?
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Cixelsid, 16 May 2007 @ 2:32am

Don't bring logic into this.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 May 2007 @ 3:44am

Why? Are you against logic?
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wizard1974uk, 16 May 2007 @ 4:02am

Re:
No one is against logic, it's just that big corporations tend not use any.
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Tarky7, 16 May 2007 @ 4:51am

Was looking for a good new music site...
After I write this post, I am going to the site and see what all the fuss is about. Thanks Evil Music Goons ! (EMG)

*LOL*
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Anonymous Coward, 16 May 2007 @ 5:11am

I have been using this site for a few months now, it's nice to have a playlist with all my songs without having to wait for it to play on aol radio.
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Michael Long, 16 May 2007 @ 6:34am

Check your facts...
Here's some quotes from the TechCruch article covering the same story: "Late in 2006 they de-emphasized their client download and started focusing on a widget strategy, letting users upload any music and stream it to others via a widget."

As such, "Warner Music sued Imeem, alleging massive copyright infringement by allowing users to stream music to others."

So, apparently, it's not just about simply swapping playlists, but streaming and sharing music among tens of thousands of people, a fact buried within two words in your own story "...they can only stream and listen to and...".

It's one thing to be biased, but this is a little heavy-handed, don't you think?
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dustin, 16 May 2007 @ 6:38am

your looking at the wrong business model
The RIAA and MPAA has turned litigation into a business model. They are profiting off of suing their costumers. This nonsense will not stop until they start paying more money for lawyers than receiving from lawsuits.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 May 2007 @ 6:52am

Thanks WB for the new site. It's great that you are promoting such a site. I didn't realize that "lawsuits" were a new form of advertising.
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Josh, 16 May 2007 @ 7:31am

Internet Radio
Not as familiar with the US regulations as I am the Canadian, but regardless I'm sure that WMG would prefer that a company get permission for this kind of use (as per the notice and any and every CD released) and that the site pay royalty fees to WMG and the artists. From a business perspective WMG only uses a numebr of services to promote their music. they use as many as the have the capacity to monitor. Once their monitoring capacity is exceeded, anything can happen. This concern is very similar to release of counterfeit goods in black market. When you can't monitor your product and it is altered in someway, you are still ultimately responsible (or will at least get the backlash from the situation). I think it's important for companies to monitor their product and the use of this product. At the same time I think WMG is at point where it can afford to increase staffing to monitor sites like this and if they were smart, embrace it and work with it to ensure that WMG comes off looking good all the way through. Imeem should be left alone until users start modifying the music to misrepresent it. As long as it's being played in it's true form, without lyrical changes (language editing not included) and people are listening, sit back and wait for the cash register to start ka-chinging. Imeem should continue and should do so with the support of a major label or two.
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Derek Coward, 16 May 2007 @ 7:34am

One interesting thing to note
I may not have been paying attention, but this is one of the few times that the RIAA isn't doing the suing, but rather one of their members, who usually let the RIAA become the lightning rod.
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John, 16 May 2007 @ 9:11am

Warner Shwarma
Idiots. I know of another small startup strugling to get into business because of high entry fees imposed by the major music labels. And if they fail, consumers are going to get their music elsewhere, for free. Only smart thing Warner ever did was sign Van Halen back in the 70's!
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jLl, 16 May 2007 @ 9:38am

Re:
>>> Don't bring logic into this.
>
> Why? Are you against logic?

Login in the music industry would be like honesty in the government...they'll fall apart with too much.
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Mike (profile), 16 May 2007 @ 10:30am

Re: Check your facts...
So, apparently, it's not just about simply swapping playlists, but streaming and sharing music among tens of thousands of people, a fact buried within two words in your own story "...they can only stream and listen to and...".

I fail to see which "facts" are missing from my post. I made it clear that Imeem was used to stream and listen to playlists... which is true. So, I'm confused why you would claim that we made a mistake.
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rEdEyEz, 16 May 2007 @ 12:01pm

Logic? Language?
"...Warner accused Imeem of building a base of 16 million users by capitalizing on the "illegal use of 'free music.'""
(Reuters)

I ask, "What is the legal use of free music?"
...so Warner acknowledges the concept of "free music?"

They're suing because of the growth of the customer base?

Bizarre
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Grant, 23 May 2009 @ 1:18am

Imeem rocks!
Its the perfect place to check out a lesser known artists works then evaluate if i would like to purchase that artists music on a pay site so i have it legally downloaded for my Mp3 device.
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