The EMI Group yesterday confirmed it has reached a settlement with SonyBMG co-owners Bertelsmann with regard to that long long running legal dispute in relation to the German conglom's financial support of the original Napster company.
As previously reported, EMI was among a consortium of record labels and music publishers who argued that by providing a loan to the Napster P2P company, BMG, as it was then, helped the legendary file sharing network survive longer in the face of rising legal and financial problems, and that therefore they enabled huge amounts of additional illegal sharing of copyright music, for which they should accept some liability. BMG, whose support of Napster was part of an ultimately unsuccessful bid to develop a royalty paying legitimate version of the P2P network, claim that because the finances they gave to Napster were a loan they could not be held liable for any copyright infringement the P2P company enabled. The plaintiffs disagreed, as well as alleging that had Napster survived BMG would have gained equity in the firm in return for their loan, and that therefore BMG's relationship with the P2P company was more than just a money lender.
The long running court case continues to work its way through the courts, with an aspect of the case - whether Bertelsmann should be forced to hand over client attorney correspondence relating to their deal with Napster - before the US Appeals Court just earlier this month. However, yesterday the only major recording company still participating in the litigation, EMI, announced it had reached a settlement with Bertelsmann. Specifics of the deal, and any financial settlement, were not revealed, although Bertelsmann stressed it had not admitted any liability as part of the settlement - a crucial fact given that legal action against them from the consortium of music publishers in relation to the dispute will continue.
EMI chief Eric Nicoli told reporters yesterday: "We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Bertelsmann. We can now put this matter behind us and continue to pursue the development of new legitimate digital music business models".
As also previously reported, Universal Music, also once part of this dispute, reached a similar settlement with Bertelsmann last year as part of its acquisition of the BMG publishing company.