Jeff Gamet Legendary rock band Pink Floyd won a court battle on Wednesday blocking EMI from selling its songs online as individual tracks instead of complete albums. The court also ordered EMI to pay about US$60,000 in costs and will rule later on what the record label must pay in fines, according to the BBC.
The judge sided with the band because its contract with EMI includes the wording "preserve the artistic integrity of the albums."
EMI's distribution agreement with Pink Floyd doesn't allow for individual song sales -- a point that the record label felt applied only to physical album sales, and not digital purchases from online services such as Apple's iTunes Store. The band, however, felt the stipulation applied to all methods of distribution, not just physical copies.
EMI hasn't had time yet to change how Pink Floyd's library is distributed through online services, so shoppers can still buy individual tracks from albums like Dark Side of the Moon at the iTunes Store. Certain songs, like Time and Us and Them, however, have always been available only when purchasing the full album.
There's no word yet on when to expect EMI to switch to offering electronic versions of Pink Floyd's library only in album format.
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Much as I like Pink Floyd and believe they are one of the few bands that actually put together a complete album vs one or two hits and boat loads of soundalike filler no one cares about, as soon as you mark off sections of an album as a ‘song’ then its going to get consumed as individual pieces. I rather doubt Floyd plays the entire Dark Side of the Moon album in concert when they just want to play Money. And if they don’t, then claiming ‘artistic integrity’ is just so much BS. Unless you define ‘artistic integrity’ as ‘you must buy the very expensive whole so that we don’t have to work hard to make every song good and so we can continue to rake in money hand over fist’.
You want artistic integrity for your album? Make it one big track, no songs.