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Six years and several billion shared songs later, the original Napster fiasco is finally about come to an end. EMI and Bertelsmann have reached a settlement that will close the book on the original Napster's biggest legal woes, legal woes so old and so confounding that it's amazing that these guys don't have better things to do. Bertelsmann angered its colleagues in the music business when it started financing Napster in 2000, back at a time when Napster was still a P2P music service very much blamed for all of the industry's ills.As part of the settlement with EMI, Bertelsmann admits no wrongdoing, but they've had to pay EMI an undisclosed sum to steer clear of the tarnish of Napster. Universal stepped out of its suit after Bertelsmann paid them $60 million for a similar clean slate deal, so we suspect that the settlement with EMI is a stone's throw from that amount. Bertelsmann may yet again have to open its pockets in the future, however, as a number of smaller suits are still out there.
Just recently, the company found at least 34 classified documents on a variety of P2P networks, he said. Committee chairman Henry Waxman of California had his staff conduct its own investigation, focusing on Limewire, and uncovered personal bank records and tax forms, attorney-client communications, Fortune 500 company strategies, government emergency response plans and military operation orders, among other items.
