It's a great day to be a frugal music fan. Today social-networking site Imeem announced a deal with Universal Music Group to allow its users to listen to the music of Universal artists for free. Imeen members won't be able to download tracks, but will be able to stream songs and music videos on their Imeen personal pages.
This continues with the ever-evolving trend of artists and labels releasing music for free, in one way or another.
I find Universal's move particularly surprising given the company's previous dealings online. Recently NBC Universal created quite the ruckus with Apple over how much profit Apple received from NBC content being sold on iTunes. Universal Music Group (UMG) also sued one of the most popular social-networking site, MySpace, for copyright infringement over songs posted on personal MySpace pages.
Imeem is a bit different than MySpace because the focus of this social-networking site is primarily centered around sharing media. Many features are integrated into the service that allows users to easily upload and post music, videos, photos and more. It is also a big gathering point for unsigned bands and artists.
UMG is the last of the four major label groups to join up with Imeem, and it's easily the biggest. Beck, Kayne West and Bon Jovi are just a few of the numerous big name artists under UMG.
The deal will allow Imeem to carry full-length song and music video by UMG artists. In return Universal will receive a percent of Imeen's advertising revenue earned each time a user plays one of its artists' songs or videos.
Much to the pleasure of all -- maybe minus the musicians -- free music may be the
future, especially after seeing Radio's successful experiment and other initiatives for the music industry to embrace the online, free-driven music industry.
That's fine by me....i will continue to use RUCKUS until that diploma is in my hands....