If you are still reading the papers, you would have noticed this apology on page B3 of Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times by The Real Singapore editor to the Singapore Press Holdings Limited (SPH) for copyright infringement:

Ai Takagi, a 22-year-old Australian and one of the founders and errorists who oversaw the now-defunct anti-Singapore socio-political website, has taken full responsibility as developer, operator, editor, moderator, and/or administrator of the site.

According to The Straits Times article that was published online on Wednesday morning, SPH has reached an out-of-court settlement of a copyright infringement suit with Takagi and her co-founder and partner Yang Kaiheng.

The Straits Times noted that the settlement includes the payment to SPH of an undisclosed sum and the publication of an apology by Takagi.

With the conclusion of the out-of-court settlement, it is assumed that everyone wants to move on from this unfortunate incident. But there are two questions on our minds:

1. Why is poor Takagi claiming full responsibility for TRS' misdeeds?

It is hard to imagine Takagi managing TRS alone, with numerous articles published and circulated daily in its heyday.

In an interview with ABC Brisbane last April, Takagi told the Australian radio that she was "one of the content creators on the website and there are actually several others".

In fact, both Takagi and Yang were each charged with seven counts of sedition and one additional charge for failing to produce documents to a police officer on April 14, 2015.

Does that absolve the 26-year old Yang from his responsibilities as a TRS editor? Will Yang set up a new site in future?

Time will tell.

2. SPH's handling of the matter - are they being merciful or are they afraid of the bad press over the case?

In the suit filed against Yang and Takagi, SPH claimed that 244 of its news articles had been reproduced or substantially reproduced on TRS website, without SPH's permission.

That was May last year when the TRS editors' credibility was at its lowest ebb with the shutdown of the site and the sedition charges hanging over their heads.

SPH appeared to have an iron-clad case, but it chose to settle out-of-court instead.

SPH publications' coverage of the out-of-court settlement is a bit curious too. For instance, there was no coverage in the print version of The Straits Times although the paper has the time to print the apology.

The Straits Times and The Business Times eventually ran online stories on Wednesday morning.

However, this wasn't the first time SPH settled copyright infringement cases out-of-court. In 2013, US internet giant Yahoo settled a two-year lawsuit filed by SPH over the reproduction of its news content without permission. In its wake, Yahoo paid an unspecified amount in damages and costs to SPH.

Perhaps a protracted court case against Yang and Takagi would have turned public opinion against SPH. It would have been an uncomfortable distraction for the public listed company, whose media business fell 6.3 per cent, primarily due to a 7.4 per cent decline in advertising revenue.

After all, the TRS editors are now the underdogs trying to make a decent living out of selling ramen at NUS and Ang Mo Kio.

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Socio-political site The Real Singapore went bye bye at 7.05pm this evening

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