Pink Floyd sue EMI over download royalties (claiming they are an album band...)

Guardian UK ^ | Wednesday 10 March 2010 | Sean Michaels

[a fool in paradise]

Pink Floyd are suing their record label EMI, claiming that it has no right to sell their songs except as part of full albums. According to a 1999 contract, tunes like Money and Another Brick in the Wall cannot be "unbundled" from the albums on which they appear; EMI alleges this does not apply to downloads.

"Pink Floyd [are] well-known for performing seamless pieces," said Robert Howe, the band's lawyer, at a High Court hearing yesterday. "Many of the songs blend into each other." To reflect this, Pink Floyd's renegotiated 1999 contract "expressly prohibits" EMI from selling songs out of context. And yet, Howe argues, EMI "[permit] individual tracks to be downloaded online and ... [therefore allow] albums not to be sold in their original configuration."

EMI's legal team dismissed this interpretation, saying the album stipulation applies only to physical releases like CDs and DVDs. "In 1999, when [the contract] was negotiated, iTunes didn't even exist," EMI lawyer Elizabeth Jones told BusinessWeek.

...Pink Floyd have been signed to EMI since 1967, issuing all of their albums through the label. It's been a lucrative career: The Dark Side of the Moon, released in 1973, is one of the all-time bestselling albums, and the group's back catalogue is second only to the Beatles in worldwide sales....

[a fool in paradise]

But I’ve seen Roger Waters’ 5 times now and the only albums he played through were Pro’s & Con’s of Hitchhiking, Radio KAOS (interrupted with Pink Floyd songs), and Dark Side of the Moon.