Groups involved in the lawsuits said late Thursday that the proposed settlement with Sony BMG, one of the world's biggest music companies, would be heard by a New York federal judge around January 6.

"We hope that other record labels will learn from Sony's hard experience and focus more on the carrot of quality music and less on the stick of copy protection," said the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), one of the groups that sued Sony BMG.

Another lawsuit had been filed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, alleging that Sony BMG violated that state's anti-spyware law with its XCP anti-piracy program, which installed hidden files when the CDs were inserted into a PC.

The EFF suit sought to compel Sony BMG to "repair the damage" to computers caused by two separate anti-piracy programs, First4Internet XCP and SunnComm MediaMax, which it said were installed on more than 24 million music CDs.

Experts say that when one of the CDs is inserted into a PC, the copy-protection software can modify computer settings and expose computers to various strains of malicious programs.

After a storm of protests, the music company said it was ending the use of the software provided by a third-party vendor and allowing consumers who purchased CDs to exchange them for similar items without the program.

Under the settlement filed with the court, Sony BMG will also allow customers to choose from two compensation packages.

One offers a cash payment of 7.50 dollars and a download of an additional album from an online list of more than 200 titles. The other would offer three album downloads.

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