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Pink Floyd has scored itself a favorable ruling from a British court that may allow the band to remove its individual tracks from digital music services, such as iTunes, Lala, and Amazon.
The underlying issue is a relatively simple one: Pink Floyd’s contract with its record company, EMI, gives the band the right to say yeah or nay to the sale of individual tracks from its albums. Pink Floyd’s intent is to preserve what it says is the artistic integrity of its work. While the contract was signed pre-digital, the band believes it applies to the digital world as well.
Pink Floyd isn’t looking to prevent its music from being available digitally. Instead it wants to control the way that music is made available. For Pink Floyd this would be the whole album or nothing at all. And for such works as The Dark Side of the Moon or The Wall, this seems to make sense. Other artists, such as Garth Brooks and AC/DC hold a similar view.
Record companies, on the other hand, find selling individual tracks easier, and hence more profitable, than selling whole albums. A position borne out by the fact that a lot of albums are little more than a fistful of songs crammed together under a title--with little or no thought to musical integrity. Consumers, for some strange reason, object to having to buy nine crappy songs just to get one good one, so tend to disfavor the idea of album integrity.
For artists there is a money issue as well. Whole albums produce more royalties for artists than do single tracks. Being able to control presentation would give artists additional leverage with record companies, giving this ruling greater significance.
The ruling doesn’t put an end to Pink Floyd in digital form. As far as EMI sees things, the court didn’t prohibit it from single track sales, so it’s single track business as usual, even for Pink Floyd, until EMI is told otherwise.
Image Credit: Apple
Comments are closed on this article
viciousglad
June 28, 2011 at 5:30am
It's their work so I guess they can impose certain rules on the market. I wouldn't want my work being ripped of from torrent websites. You don't need to be have an expert in criminal justice to figure that one out to see that the ruling was correct. Alex - specialist on caderea parului.
Larzs13
March 13, 2010 at 2:20am
I would have to agree with a lot with the likes of PINK FLOYD like one guy said you cant listen to any song really with out hearing the one before it. Such as Another Brick in the Wall it has three parts to it and the songs that space in between them are needed to get the meaning that is behind them, which tell what the singer or writer is trying to get across.
Digital-Storm
March 11, 2010 at 4:22pm
So their marketing idea. Alot of money, or no money at all? Very intelligent.
Vegan
March 11, 2010 at 6:55pm
Marketing? Not everything is about money. I believe it's an artistic decision. There are definitely albums that I think should only be listened to as a whole.
highsidednb
March 11, 2010 at 4:15pm
Listening to a single Pink Floyd track outside the context of an album is like reading a single random chapter out of the Lord of the Rings...
Good for Pink Floyd. More artist control of their art is always better.
SininStyle
March 11, 2010 at 7:59pm
Those who can listen to a single track from the wall are obviously not fans of the music. Anyone who knows this album knows it cover to cover. I was told i was stupid for buying the entire Wall for a second time due to a severe scratch in one of the songs. Just couldnt listen to the CDs without that song.
LGA1156
March 11, 2010 at 4:13pm
sure, I'll preserve there artistic integrity of their work, by downloading bit torrents there full cds...
Lwapo
March 11, 2010 at 7:32pm
Thats the sound of an extremely dumb decision on Pink Floyds part.
1) Pink Floyd sells a crap load (techincal term) of albums back in the day.
2) Pink Floyd starts to sell less after they fade away.
3) Pink Floyd starts selling more due to digital media (Itunes, etc.)
4) Pink Floyd gets a great idea and kills their downloaded song royalties and fade away again because everyone will torrent the song if they want it bad enough. Others will just laugh and move on.
Wareagle
March 11, 2010 at 4:02pm
...we'll just go back to downloading individual tracks with eMule and Limewire. :)
Caboose
March 11, 2010 at 4:13pm
Enjoy your viruses, mis-labeled files, and hidden porn...
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
gendoikari1
March 11, 2010 at 5:06pm
"Mis-labeled files" is a negative? Well, technically, but only if you're too lazy to change it with the music software of your choice.
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AndyYankee17
March 11, 2010 at 4:32pm
an mp3 isn't an executable file and therefore cannot contain a virus
Tekzel
March 11, 2010 at 5:13pm
Actually, this isn't ENTIRELY true. You can attach a malformed payload to a data file that can, when read and processed by a certain program, cause that program to do something unexpected... or expected by the virus writer. Like a buffer overflow, etc. Of course this presupposes that the user uses the program you expec them to, but if you target a very common app, say iTunes, then you can get some hits.
---
You know users... Buncha bitchy little girls.
Caboose
March 11, 2010 at 5:57pm
or even Windows Media Player. It's very common to have viruses and other malware in wma's
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
aviaggio
March 11, 2010 at 3:39pm
"The ruling doesn’t put an end to Pink Floyd in digital form. As far as EMI sees things, the court didn’t prohibit it from single track sales, so it’s single track business as usual, even for Pink Floyd, until EMI is told otherwise."
According to MSNBC, EMI has been ordered to stop selling individual tracks
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35815847/ns/entertainment-music/
bartsalisbury
March 11, 2010 at 4:00pm
The BBC report contains this about EMI's response:
"An EMI statement said: "Today's judgment does not require EMI to cease making Pink Floyd's catalogue available as single track downloads, and EMI continues to sell Pink Floyd's music digitally and in other formats."
And this is what I went from. MSNBC's report seems pretty certain on the prohibition. Guess it's time to dig up the actual court records.
AndyYankee17
March 11, 2010 at 3:16pm
$25 FOR "THE WALL"? WITH DRM?
jesus, have people never heard of a cd? just by one on amazon and wait for it to ship
Caboose
March 11, 2010 at 3:08pm
How soon before Apple shits a brick and freaks out?
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
Havok
March 11, 2010 at 7:17pm
Whenever Steve Jobs announces that all artists under the EMI label have too much control and are deemed unworthy of their app/iTunes store.
CLICK.
