Imeem to Pay The Orchard $1.77M in Copyright Judgment

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 4, 2010 - 9:32am.

Los Angeles - Streaming music service imeem, which recently sold certain assets to News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace, has been hit with a $1.77 million copyright infringement judgment, GigaOM reported.

The suit was originally filed by digital music distributor The Orchard (NASD: ORCD) in October, and the default judgment was issued by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin on Dec. 17 after imeem failed to appear in court.

A spokesperson for MySpace, which is rumored to have paid less than $1 million for imeem, told GigaOM that the company was not involved in the lawsuit.

MySpace's acquisition included only "certain assets" of imeem, which apparently did not include thousands in royalty payments owed to independent artists.

GigaOM speculated that the deal could also have been structured by MySpace to include only assets that "were not being sued."

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/tys2q (GigaOM)

http://snipurl.com/tys6c (DMW previous coverage)

http://www.theorchard.com

http://www.imeem.com