Universal And My Space Now Friends

Doug Morris, chief executive officer of Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, said that he expects to reach a settlement with MySpace, which the company sued for copyright infringement.

“I think it will settle. It would be a horrible case for them to lose,” Morris said at the Reuters Media Summit in New York.

Earlier this month, Universal, owned by French media giant Vivendi (VIV.PA: Quote, Profile, Research), filed a lawsuit against popular social networking site MySpace, owned by News Corp. (NWS.N: Quote, Profile, Research), for infringing the copyrights of thousands of artists’ works.

In the lawsuit, Universal accused MySpace of allowing users to upload videos illegally and of taking part in the infringement by re-formatting the videos to be played back or sent to others. The suit followed several months of failed talks on music rights with MySpace, according to a source familiar with the discussions.