The story of imeem...and why you should use it

Remember Napster?

Napster was the first popular digital music service that brought people to the web for the explicit purpose of downloading and listening to free music. For an 18 month period (from 1999 to 2001) it was a magical place - for the very first time any music by any artist could be found and downloaded for free. There'd been nothing like it before. It was the first time people began to see the opportunity for free content distribution that the web could provide.

Napster (in its original form) was shut down by legal challenges in 2001, due in no small part to the band Metallica realizing that people were getting their music without paying for it.

A contingent of programmers who worked on Napster started imeem...a social networking/music website that has one big change from Napster. Though you can also find almost every song ever written on imeem (much like Napster) this time you can listen to them with the blessing of the four major record labels (Sony/BMG, EMI, Vivendi/Universal and Warner Music Group).

Of course there are other differences: imeem allows you to befriend your favorite bands and meet other people who are into the same music you are; imeem allows to listen to your favorite music anywhere you can access the internet, and imeem allows you to create playlists for other people to enjoy. In essence it's a grown-up, officially sanctioned Napster.

That said...what's to stop people from downloading music off of BitTorrent?

Where do you get your music? Lemme know in the comments below...