• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, July 12, 2007

Warner Music Group has added imeem to the roster of Web companies it's partnering with, as opposed to litigating against. The music giant said today it will drop a pending copyright infringement lawsuit against social networking site imeem and, instead, will enter into a revenue-sharing agreement with the company.

"This deal provides an opportunity to unleash the value of music on one of the world's leading social networks by giving fans an environment where they can discover and share new music," Alex Zubillaga, executive vice president, digital strategy and business development at Warner Music Group, said in a statement.

Indeed, this rationale makes so much sense that it's puzzling why any entertainment companies continue to fight Web 2.0 sites. After all, few people are willing to pay for records unless they're already familiar with the musicians' work.

Warner and some other companies seem to be realizing that. Last September Warner forged a similar deal with YouTube to avert litigation. The other major record labels also ultimately entered into agreements with YouTube rather than sue the site.

But these deals doesn't necessarily signal an across-the-board rapprochement between entertainment companies and the Web. Universal, for instance, though it allied with YouTube, is still suing MySpace for copyright infringement. And, Viacom still has a pending $1 billion copyright infringement suit against the video-sharing site.