Universal Music Group and Bolt Announce Settlement

NEW YORK, NY. (Universal Music Group) - Universal Music Group (UMG), the world's leading music company, and Bolt Inc. jointly announced today that they have reached an out-of-court settlement resolving the lawsuit brought by UMG against Bolt last year. UMG had sued Bolt for copyright infringement in connection with the unauthorized use of UMG's video and music content on the Bolt website. Recently, Bolt announced it would be acquired by GoFish which has been a licensed partner of UMG for the past two years.

Under the terms of the agreement, Bolt has agreed to provide UMG with a multi-million dollar payment for damages for past infringement, against a percentage of the value of the company. In addition, Bolt has also agreed to introduce filtering technologies within the next 60 days ensuring that its users can no longer exploit the music and videos of UMG artists and songwriters without appropriate payment and consent.

"We are pleased to have resolved this litigation in an amicable manner and that Bolt has recognized our rights under the law," stated Doug Morris, Chairman & CEO, Universal Music Group. "Moving forward, we and our artists will now be paid for the use of our music and videos on the site. While our preference is to work out similar arrangements with other user generated sites so that we can bring our music to the widest possible audience, we will continue to be vigilant in protecting our rights and those of our artists and songwriters from services that unreasonably expect to build businesses on the backs of our content and hard work without permission and fair compensation."

"Bolt's creative community is the perfect audience for UMG's world class library of music and videos," added Aaron Cohen, CEO of Bolt. "Together we can create innovative Made-for-Internet programming that aligns UMG's talented artists with Bolt's coveted user base."