Digital Trends

Former courtroom rivals have forged a partnership that will give Imeem access to copyrighted content and Warner a cut from ad revenues.

If you can’t beat them, join them. That seems to be Warner Music Group’s most recent strategy in its battle with Imeem, a social networking site based on music. The record label announced on Thursday that it would be dropping its lawsuit against Imeem and instead seek a partnership with the company.

The original lawsuit, which began back in May, alleged that Imeem was allowing users to post copyrighted content, helping grow the community to 16 million users and making Imeem’s founders money off of other people’s property. Warner also claimed that Imeem was intentionally avoiding any effort to remove the offending material.

After negotiations, Warner announced on Thursday that it has struck a deal with Imeem allowing the site to use the copyrighted works of its artists, but with Warner now being compensated with ad revenue. Imeem has also started using software from Snocap that will help them identify and remove copyrighted content from other labels.