PlayMedia settles Nullsoft copyright suit

Music software developer PlayMedia Systems has settled its $20 million lawsuit against Nullsoft, just one day after America Online bought the Net music technology firm.

In its lawsuit, filed in March, PlayMedia, which develops digital content distribution and management software and hardware including the AMP MP3 playback engine, accused Nullsoft of using copyright-protected AMP code, which was written by PlayMedia principal Tomislav Uzelac, in its Winamp player. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles and sought a permanent injunction against Nullsoft along with the monetary damages.

Although there has been a lot of legal wrangling surrounding the MP3 format (MPEG 1, Audio Layer 3), in general it has been the mainstream record industry fighting the use of the format to pirate music. The PlayMedia suits were unusual in that they pitted MP3 companies against one another.

A Nullsoft executive referred questions about the settlement to AOL; an AOL spokesperson was not immediately available to comment. AOL yesterday said it planned to acquire Nullsoft and Net radio firm Spinner for $400 million in stock.

Last month PlayMedia added music news, download, and community site MP3.com to the lawsuit; that action also was settled, PlayMedia said.

As part of the Nullsoft settlement, "Nullsoft has received a paid-up license for PlayMedia's AMP 0.7 series MP3 playback technology," PlayMedia said in a statement.

As for MP3.com, PlayMedia said the dispute was resolved "amicably," with no payment of cash or stock by MP3.com. Instead, the two companies entered into a business relationship; specific terms were not disclosed. MP3.com was not immediately available to comment.