Social media network imeem has announced it has acquired media distributor Snocap. imeem is a social networking service that enables users to interact with each other and express themselves with music, photos, and video, and discover new artists and new friends by way of shared interests and media. Snocap is best known for enabling artists to sell their music on any Web site—most significantly on social network MySpace—while retaining control of their copyrights and licensing. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
For the last year, imeem has been partnering with Snocap to identify music tracks uploaded by imeem users, and used the system to determine whether the content owner permits streaming of the music, as well as to manage royalty payments to artists whose music gets played via imeem. imeem plans to continue leveraging Snocap’s technology and digital rights management systems to expand the range of media offerings available via imeem. On its Web site, Snocap says there are no plans to change how artists and music labels work with Snocap: artists will still be able to sell their music through MySpace and their own Web sites, and Snocap will continue to pay artists for music plays.
“The Snocap team built a great technology platform that will be useful to imeem as we continue to grow,” said imeem CEO Dalton Caldwell, in a statement. “Together we’ll build on that work in the coming months, and give labels and independent artists new ways to promote and sell their music through imeem, MySpace, and anywhere on the Web.”
