On February 28, 2013, the top four international record companies (Universal Music Group, Warner Music, Sony Music Entertainment Hong Kong Ltd., and Gold Typhoon Entertainment Ltd.) signed the settlement agreement with Sohu and Sogou on music copyright issues. This settlement says that both sides shall devote to the innovation of Internet music operation mode and protection mode. Also, the two sides signed cooperation agreement and anti-piracy agreement around the detailed cooperation form and content. 

The four record companies dropped the appeal. In the mean time, Sogou invested to support the anti-piracy fund of International Federation of the Photographic Industry (IFPI). Meanwhile, Sogou and the four record companies came to another agreement that Sogou paid the copyright royalty and the record companies authorized Sogou uploading the whole song catalog and the coming new song catalog. Therefore, the Internet users could enjoy and download the songs for free. By then, the copyright issues have been completely settled and millions of the Netizens may get access to the licensed songs at Sogou.com. Finally, the dispute case involving 105 pop songs and 54 million RMB was successfully mediated.

In August 2010, Beijing Higher People’s Court accepted and heard the case, which was a typical case involving large amount of money and complicated legal matters. The collegiate bench analyzed that the direct judicial verdict may end the case soon, but it cannot settle the issue fundamentally. Therefore, the collegiate bench drew support from the entrusted mediation mechanism, which was established by Beijing Higher Court and the Mediation Center of Internet Society of China (ISC). 

In the following two years, the collegiate bench and the Mediation Center together mediated the issues with the parties concerned by means of face-to-face mediation at court and mediation over the phone etc., so as to resolve the obstacles, minimize the differences and boost the reconciliation willingness. Because all the four record companies are the members of IFPI, the final decision has to be made at the U.S. headquarter, the confirmation of each term was time-consuming. Although there existed some disputes on some terms during the decision-making process, the collegiate bench conducted patient mediation, guiding the two parties concerned came to a basic cooperation agreement on the basis of seeking common points while reserving differences signed the settlement agreement. This music copyright protection case was one of the significant cases in China.