Imeem Scoops Up SNOCAP Music Service
“What do you do when the company you bank on to help solve your copyright headaches is going to fall down? If you are Imeem and the company in question is Snocap, you buy it.”
San Francisco – Imeem, the leading social media network, today disclosed the acquisition of SNOCAP, a digital rights and content management technology company.
“The social media network had in the past employed Snocap’s know-how to distinguish tracks that users upload and manage payments to musicians and labels.”
Imeem’s acquisition of SNOCAP comes as little surprise: Reports were buzzing around that SNOCAP was looking for a buyer. Imeem has previously used SNOCAP’s content-identification platform and digital registry to identify music uploaded by users.
This important possession will provide Imeem with a powerful content identification technology, a wide-ranging Digital Registry, and an enhanced team of executive and engineering talent. The acquisition could ultimately strengthen Imeem’s licensing lead over most of its competition.
“Imeem is the third biggest social network in the U.S.”
Imeem boasts over 24 million visitors and has been ranked by Quantcast as the third-largest social network in the United States.
“The Snocap team built a great technology platform that will be useful to Imeem as we continue to grow,” Dalton Caldwell, Imeem’s founder and CEO, said while announcing the acquisition Monday. “Together we will 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.”
There are over 7 million songs presently in SNOCAP’s digital registry, and more than 110,000 unsigned and unaffiliated artists and labels sell their music through the SNOCAP MyStores. SNOCAP MyStores also sell the music of well-known performers; including The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Diddy, Nickelback, The Shins, LCD Soundsystem, Lily Allen, Sean Paul, and Corinne Bailey Rae are among Snocap’s MyStore users.
Rusty Rueff, CEO of Snocap, said the two companies already work toward the same goal: allowing artists to promote music in new ways.
SNOCAP was started in 2002 by a group that included Shawn Fanning, Jordan Mendelson, and Ron Conway the founder of Napster, with backing from WaldenVC, Morgenthaler Ventures, and Court Square Ventures. Snocap’s COO, Ali Aydar, who was also an early arrival at Napster, will become Imeem’s VP of operations.