EMI Drops Lawsuit Against Project Playlist, Licenses Catalog Instead

Music search and streaming service Project Playlist may finally be turning the tide in its ongoing battle with the music industry. EMI Music, one of the three major labels which was suing Project Playlist for copyright infringement, dropped out of the litigation and is announcing today that it has licensed its entire catalog to the service instead. EMI joins Sony BMG, which was never part of the lawsuit, in licensing its digital catalog of music to Project Playlist.

That is two down, two to go. Warner Music and Universal Music Group are still party to the suit. If Project Playlist CEO Owen Van Natta can get them to license their catalogs as well, maybe the vultures circling the company will go away. The service is currently banned on both Facebook and MySpace. Getting the other two labels on board would be necessary for lifting those bans.

Warner and Universal don’t seem to be in any rush to settle, however. And Project Playlist doesn’t have much time. The number of U.S. unique visitors going to its site has dropped from 10.4 million in November, 2008 to 6.1 million in February, 2009, according to comScore.