I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know the appropriate term, but though not a precedent it certainly is a smell. Settling out of court might mean the label in questi

I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know the appropriate term, but though not a precedent it certainly is a smell. Settling out of court might mean the label in question was of the opinion that they very well might lose if they went to court, this is bolstered by your point that the artist probably couldn't afford to fight it; this implies that the record label could have gone to court, confident they could bleed the plaintiff dry, but the risk of that strategy was too great. So whatever the term is, it does crack the door open a little bit (hopefully).