• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, February 12, 2007

Bolt Media is expected to sell itself to video-sharing site GoFish.com for as much as $30 million in stock, in order to raise money to settle a copyright lawsuit brought by record label Universal Music Group, The New York Times reports.

Under the settlement, which could be announced later this week, Bolt will agree to pay Universal "several million" dollars as well as future royalties for pirated videos uploaded by users. The Times additionally reports that Bolt is negotiating a similar deal with Warner Music.

The legal dispute dates to last October, when Universal sued Bolt and another video site, Sony's Grouper Networks, for copyright infringement based on clips submitted by users. Universal, which counts U2, Fergie, The Killers, and Kanye West among its artists, alleged that its clips benefited the sites by helping to drive traffic to them. In November, Universal brought a similar lawsuit against MySpace.

But some legal experts thought that the video-sharing sites could make a solid case that they weren't liable for infringing clips uploaded by users, based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That law appears to immunize Web companies from copyright liability as long as they remove the material after owners complain.