As expected, German media conglom and SonyBMG parent Bertelsmann has confirmed it has now reached a settlement with all of the major record companies in relation to its support of the original Napster. The final settlement was with the Warner Music Group, who, although not part of the original lawsuit relating to Bertelsmann's Napster support, had been reserving the right to take action in the future.
As much previously reported, the majors claimed that Bertelsmann, whose BMG record company provided funding to the original Napster P2P company in the latter part of its existence, should accept liability for copyright violation committed on the P2P network while its funding was helping it stay in business. BMG provided funding to help Napster in their ultimately unsuccessful bid to develop and launch a legitimate version of their P2P system, but the German music firm claimed that the funding was simply a loan and therefore they couldn't be held liable for any copyright violation Napster enabled. The majors argued that BMG stood to gain equity in the file sharing firm had its bid to find a legitimate model been successful, and that therefore it should be held liable.
Despite its out of court efforts to bring an end to this dispute, Bertelsmann has been careful to not actually accept any liability in its recent settlements with Universal, EMI and now Warner in relation to its support of Napster, mainly because a consortium of publishers is still pursuing its action and the media conglom won't want to weaken its hand should that case go to court.