Scour Says It Intends to Repay All Creditors

In an unusual move amid the flood of companies filing for bankruptcy, Scour Inc.--the defunct entertainment dot-com operation once backed by former super-agent Michael Ovitz and supermarket magnate Ronald Burkle--is expected to pay back all of its creditors and investors by July 31.

The Beverly Hills company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2000, was created by a group of UCLA students who developed a search engine that hunted for multimedia files, such as music, video and pictures. The product raised the ire of the entertainment industry, which claimed the company was encouraging the pirating of intellectual property.

Scour’s assets eventually were sold to CenterSpan Communications Corp., a software developer based in Hillsboro, Ore., and bankruptcy attorneys have divvied up the $7-million estate to pay back “every penny on the dollar to hundreds of creditors,” said debtor attorney Paul Brent. “There was about $5 million in creditor debt. Whatever’s left will go to the shareholders. For the shareholders to actually get any money back is rare.”

The final division will happen at the end of this month, when the case is expected to close at Bankruptcy Court in L.A.