Universal Music Group has joined most of the other music majors in signing a deal with social music networking site imeem, licensing its full catalog to the company for delivery on an advertising supported basis.
This is all part of a new UMG strategy which, while arguing that iTunes pricing is too low, has opened up several fronts where UMG music is free, DRM free and either advertising supported, or sold bundled with a device.
UMG has pulled all of the same content from iTunes very publicly, while at the same promising its own music store, and also signing up for deals like this one with imeem.
Imeem claims an audience of 19 million users and sends a protected music and video stream straight to a PC screen, putting 15 second audio ads between tracks and playing static banner adverts on screen.
Imeem signed Sony-BMG to the cause must over a month ago, to join the EMI and Warner Music collections that it already had.