Universal Music has signed a deal to make their music available to Imeem users. With the signing of the deal, Imeem now has partnerships with all four major labels, including Warner Brothers, EMI and Sony BMG.

Imeem users can stream songs in full from partner-labels, who get a cut thanks to advertising. As of now, Imeem gains an edge over competitor MySpace because Universal allows only for the streaming of 90-second clips to members of that online social network.

Universal Music Chair and Chief Executive Doug Morris explains the reasons for treating the two sites differently as follows:

“Imeem has developed an innovative way to make our artists’ music a central part of the social-networking experience,” Morris said. “More importantly, they’ve done so the right way–by working with [Universal] to provide an exciting musical experience for consumers, while ensuring that our artists are fairly compensated for the use of their works.”

Today, Sony Pictures announced that it had acquired all North American and all English-language distribution rights to Peter Jackson’s “secret” sci-fi movie, District 9. The Academy Award winning director and friend to elves, hobbits and any and all demi-humans everywhere, however, will not direct the feature. He will, instead, act as producer through his WingNut Films and Neill Blomkamp will direct. It’s Blomkamp’s feature debut, and he also wrote the film alongside Terri Tatchell. Blomkamp’s previous work includes short films for the Halo 3 launch, titled Landfall, and he’s also been attached to the forthcoming Halo film, which is now in pre-production.

Sony Pictures, understandably, is stoked.

“We have seen some of Neil’s enormously creative work launching Halo 3 and he is a true talent who understands how to use visual effects in full service of the story. With Peter Jackson and his team at WETA workshop working with Neil, we believe District 9 can be a true event tentpole on our release slate,” said Amy Pascal, Co-Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment

Should you be stoked? I guess. It’s a little tough to get too worked up about a movie you don’t know anything about, but I’d probably watch someone take a dump if Peter Jackson’s name was attached to it. The film begins shooting in South Africa in Spring 2008, and those involved are being pretty tight-lipped about the plot. Expect to read a lot of half-truths and rumors to flooding a nerd-centric message board near you.

In some flossed out corporate room somewhere, rap duo The Clipse just signed a contract (perhaps with a jewel encrusted fountain pen) with Rick Rubin (who I didn’t realize kind of looks like Spencer from Bear Hunter and MC Oroville) at Sony/Columbia Records. They love The Clipse, The Clipse loves them. Here’s the deets:

Their multimillion-dollar, 5-year contract with Columbia is rare given the stingy state of the industry. And it accommodates not only forthcoming Clipse albums, but also solo efforts from each brother, and collective recordings with co-conspiratorial MCs Ab-Liva and Sandman. Together, the foursome comprises the Re-Up Gang. In fact, a Re-Up release is first on the slate, aimed for March ‘08. The Clipse will follow come summer.

Says Pusha T about the relationship with Sony: “The Clipse represent everything that we’ve all known Rick Rubin to represent: hip-hop in its purest form. To know that the head guy is a creative guy as well, that makes me feel good.”

I wanna Ice Cream hat.

Sony caught a lot of flack for its over-hyped but utterly disappointing Playstation 3 launch. The Playstation has been the king of the console hill for the past two generations, but poor reviews and little game selection has seen the third gen Playstation struggle to compete with its peers. But Sony’s not going to go down without a fight, especially to something with a name like “Wii”. Sony and Rockstar Games, creators of the Grand Theft Auto series, have signed and exclusive deal for the controversial video game companies “next great franchise.” As Sony’s Michael Shorrock on the PlayStation blog:

“Rockstar really wanted to make a game that you can truly only do on PS3, harnessing the power of Cell and Blu-ray disc.”

Good news for Sony fans (and their stockholders), but really, you can keep all that wannabe gangsta bullshit. I’m just counting the days till Final Fantasy XIII.

133t.

When I was a kid, I was afraid Satan lived under my bed. Now that I’m older, I’m pretty confident that the Prince of Darkness probably inhabits a more palatial manor. Based on a true story, The Exorcism of Emily Rose depicts the trial of a priest charged with negligence that resulted in the death of a 19-year-old woman believed to be possessed. I’m sure a whole lot of freaky demon shit is contained therein, but I wouldn’t know. I didn’t watch the trailer because the last time I saw The Exorcist, I nearly soiled myself. I blame my Catholic upbringing. However, feel free to put your immortal soul in danger and check out the clip below.

Windows Media | Real