Yahoo! Asia Pacific has paid damages and costs to Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) in a copyright infringement lawsuit, with those responsible for the plagiarism disciplined or sacked.

The amounts involved, however, remain confidential.

Under the terms of the amicable settlement, Yahoo! Asia Pacific acknowledged that it has, in connection with its Yahoo! Singapore News site, reproduced content from SPH's newspapers without the media firm's approval.

"As publishers, Yahoo! companies strive to respect the intellectual property rights of others wherever they do business," a joint media statement from both companies on Monday said.

"The actions here by a small number of Yahoo! Asia Pacific employees are deeply regretted."

Yahoo! has also undertaken not to, amongst other things, "knowingly or intentionally infringe SPH's copyrights", the statement added.

The lawsuit, pitting a predominantly traditional media owner against a new media firm, was believed to be the first of its kind here.

It was filed in the High Court in November 2011, with SPH then citing 23 articles from its newspapers which Yahoo! was alleged to have reprodued substantially over a 12-month period.

Yahoo denied the allegations and also counter-sued, citing two articles and a picture from its website that were allegedly posted on SPH's citizen journalism website Stomp.

Yahoo! later applied to withdraw one of the grounds of its counterclaim, and the courts granted an order for it to amend the claim.

In August 2012, SPH filed an amended claim, citing a total of 254 articles stretching over 17 months, which it said Yahoo had reproduced without permission.