MySpace says it has acquired “certain assets” of cash-poor social music service imeem and it’s moving fast to capitalize on the biggest one: users. Sometime today, imeem’s 16 million-plus users will be redirected to MySpace Music. MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta promises via blog post to move fast to offer their imeem playlists on MySpace Music.

SEE ALSO: So, Who Killed Imeem, Anyway? Executives Blame The Orchard…

But—and that’s a serious capital “B”—it looks like they’re starting the transition without users’ playlists, which would annoy the heck out of me if that’s how I managed my music listening. Van Vatta promises: “As quickly as possible, we’ll be working to offer users the imeem playlists they’ve created on MySpace Music.”

Update: Turns out the deal just closed this morning and, I’m told imeem’s music licenses had expired so the users would be losing access to the playlists either way. If it seemed like a fire sale before, it sounds even more like one now. The switch is already underway and a minimalist FAQ for users is up.

Access to music through imeem.com was doomed: imeem was out of cash and couldn’t pay the labels for the plays any more and, even if they were up to date, the licenses were non-transferable. The only other option was to switch imeem.com to 30-sec plays until a full transition was ready. Either way, it’s a jarring situation for users and close to the worst outcome for imeem. (The worst would be simply disappearing in the middle of the night.)