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EMI Cannot Unbundle Pink Floyd Songs
smooth wombat writes "Before the advent of iTunes and MP3s, EMI and Pink Floyd entered into a contract which stated that EMI could not unbundle individual songs from their original album settings. This was insisted upon by the members of Pink Floyd, who wanted to retain artistic control of their works, which they considered 'seamless' pieces of music. However, with the advent of digital downloads, EMI has been selling individual songs through its online store. Pink Floyd sued, claiming EMI was violating the contract, whereas EMI said the contract only applied to physical albums, not Internet sales. Judge Andrew Morritt backed the band, saying the contract protected 'the artistic integrity of the albums.' Judge Morritt also ruled EMI is 'not entitled to exploit recordings by online distribution or by any other means other than the complete original album without Pink Floyd's consent.'"
all in all, they just ran into a wall.
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
I don't remember, how much money does a band get per (legally) downloaded audio track?
If they want their art to be bundled and only sold that way, and EMI agreed to it, good for them. But at the same time, (assuming they care, they may not) they could also be limiting themselves on the amount of money they could be making.
As I said, I doubt they care, but it's interesting to me.
Sent from your iPad.
Let's hope they get permanently blocked by their ISP (and others) for three strikes.
doesn't make any sense. Pink Floyd's music is meant to be listened to as a whole, albums are (the good ones) carefully prepared and are one piece of music story.
There goes any hopes for Pink Floyd on Rock Band or Guitar Hero...
It's funny because radio destroys this "artistic integrity" by playing Pink Floyd singles every day.
...this is about a record label subverting a contract. EMI clearly feels EMI will make more money by subverting the contract and selling tracks, Pink Floyd clearly feels Pink Floyd will make more money by selling entire albums and doesn't want to jeopardize that. EMI is probably right, Pink Floyd possibly so. The courts only come in due to the fact that they can actually afford to sue their label over EMI's failure to live up to its contract.
Merciless, the magistrate turns 'round [to EMI,] frowning.
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
"One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces"
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
This doesn't prevent Pink Floyd from making a separate deal to sell individual songs. To me it's more about smacking down EMI for trying to bypass contract verbiage and I applaud that. It's nice to see that a judge thinks an artist's vision of their work actually counts for something.
Pink Floyd's music is meant to be listened to as a whole, albums are (the good ones) carefully prepared and are one piece of music story.
Tell that to Pandora when it plays it to me. Maybe they are next on Pink Floyd lawyers list...
I am a fan of Pink Floyd - some of their music can easily be removed and sold individually. Comfortably Numb, Money, Time, Learning to Fly, etc, can all be enjoyed individually with little to no "loss" in atmosphere.
This is how it is played on radio, this is how people have been introduced to it. But once you start listening to the CDs as a whole, you'll never want to go back to one-off radio play. Seeing Roger Waters play Dark Side of the Moon was amazing - and you have to agree with Pink Floyd, something is missing when you play each track by itself and out of order.
Songs like Shine on you Crazy Diamond have to be played together, otherwise it doesn't make much sense. On the radio, DJs will frequently take "Us and Them" and meld it in with Any Color you like, Brain Damage, Eclipse to make sense. Same with parts of Another Brick in the Wall. Listening to many of the Pink Floyd CDs, you can barely tell when one song ends and another begins.
I have yet to hear an entire Pink Floyd album played on the radio. I hear "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II" almost daily, and frequently hear "Money", "Learning to Fly", "Wish You Were Here" and "Comfortably Numb". I'm no Floyd fan, but I like some of those tunes enough that I'd buy them individually, and screw anyone who says I shouldn't be able to because of "artistic integrity".
I submit that telling me how to appreciate a piece of art negates its status as art.
These guys ain't the poor artists that the RIAA likes you to believe exists (and works very hard at trying to create by not actually paying royalties they collect to artists). So i doubt they give a shit. Really, they don't have to go dumpster diving anytime soon.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That Slashdot will generally back up PF in this, because they are standing up to the evil record label.
Which seems to be somewhat contradictory to the general opinion that record labels (and/or artists? information wants to be free? evil copyright?) should not be allowed to have such tight control over how things are sold.
So here's a record label making it EASIER to get tracks and we're upset about it, because PinkFloyd wants to only sell complete albums. I guess that's their artistic license... but aren't they being evil and putting strict terms on how you acquire their music? I've heard plenty of arguments how that shouldn't be allowed, it's not fair, etc., unless you're talking about physical media. And PF is now suing over distribution of non-physical media ...
So yes: in my opinion, EMI is breaking a contract. Bad.
And in my opinion/guess, Slashdot is going to generally be contradicting themselves, upholding a "non-freedom" position (PF's) because it happens to be against what the record label wants.
If PF wanted it to be listened to as a whole, then make it one track. Or make it movements, like symphonies... etc. For that matter, think of all the symphonies that are sold by movement. Separately... :)
The wonder of Pink Floyd is not its "hits" like "Another Brick in the Wall" or "Money". Insead, the most popular thing by them is "Dark Side of the Moon" You don't just listen to one of the "songs" on the album, you listen to the ablum. If you wanted to cut it, you can cut it at the midpoint, when you would have to turn over the record. Any other split is breaking apart the music.
Someone mentioned above, selling Shine on You Crazy Diamond IIV is just stupid. Many of their "songs" are really long, but this is only because they did better with that part of the album, so there wasn't an obvious split. EMI has no right to go back on its contract, or break down the music it is distributing.
I never realized how intercoupled the songs on Pink Floyd albums were until I happened to listen to the songs on my mp3 device while set to 'random song'. It was jumping all over my music collection, and all the Pink Floyd songs were either jarring to come into or ended abruptly. I can see why they didn't want them split up. They really are parts of a whole with a few exceptions.
But c'mon, what balls on EMI. Because they signed a contract that said EMI could only sell the records if they were intact, EMI tried to weasel out by saying they weren't selling records. But then I remember this is one of the labels behind the RIAA extortion scheme, so I shouldn't be surprised.
...for sticking to their guns. Artistic integrity isn't generally a concern of popular musicians.
I have yet to hear anything resembling artistic integrity on the radio.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Yeah, I don't think this sort of thing bothers me. I think it will probably hurt their sales in some ways, but whatever.... as long as they sell it DRM-free and don't try to negotiate weird/strict licensing deals and stuff like that.
I know we like to live in a black and white world where every action is either evil or terrific based purely on the action itself, but the motivations really do matter. I think it sucks when a record label picks out the couple of songs that you really want on an album and says they're "Album only", i.e. when every other song on some compilation album is available for purchase on its own, but the 1 big hit song on the album in unavailable for purchase by itself. That's annoying.
But the artist himself saying, "I developed this to be a whole album, and I don't want people purchasing parts"...? Meh. I can live with it.
I'd take that one step further, I wish mp3 players were designed with a easy "Continue on to next track" feature for random play. I love having my iPod on shuffle, except when playing things that segue like Dark Side of The Moon or Abbey Road or Frank Zappa's Apostrophe. When a tune like "Brain Damage" comes on, it would be nice to have an one-push feature that will continue to "Eclipse", as opposed to Floydus Interruptus.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Pink Floyd's music is meant to be listened to as a whole, albums are (the good ones) carefully prepared and are one piece of music story.
Except for the singles the band agreed to release, right? You know, "Money," "Us and Them," "Have a cigar," "Wish You Were Here," "Another Brick in the Wall," etc.
FYI, I hate hearing money by itself. I really do feel that song loses all of its meaning when played outside the album
But no, the artists can say what they want and choose to sell their art in whatever manner they please. They can also tell you how to enjoy it.
But you. You are obviously not bound by the artists interpretation of their own work. If you disagree with it,agree with it, are apathetic towards the artists interpretation, its still art.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Yes, those are different. They agreed to release those as singles. Doesn't change the fact that their contract with EMI says that EMI can not sell their albums as anything but the full album without PF's consent.
All they have to do is concatenate all the songs into one file.
What genres are you listening to?
I've heard plenty of quite good artists and artistic performances on the radio. But I listen to classical music, usually.
as apparently people just blindly click on what they perceive is lulzy, but was really quite dim.
We're talking about the sale of the songs and albums here; not the one-time listening on a radio station. Apples and oranges. Sure, some tracks like Money or Comfortably Numb lend themselves to single airplay, but when was the last time a station played "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party, Entertainment" ?
I'm all for being able to buy tracks that we like, because a _lot_ of bands make really crappy albums with 1-2 good tracks. In Pink Floyd's case a lot of albums are made to be a whole, songs flowing into each other, by theme, by style, by meaning, and so on, some of their albums are really good, pieces of art in every sense of the word. Picking tracks one by one is still ok, for those who know the albums, even I listen to a lot of PF songs separately, but it's different than taking a random track from a random band, since I almost always can recall the album itself - I can't really put this into words, the best one I can find is that some of their albums truly provide a nice experience. If they ask some "song retailer" - as I like to call the likes of EMI - to keep the integrity of their creations, I'd honor that request, if not for anything else, then out of respect for what they've put on the table. We're not talking about some one-timer pop-group here, who were slapped together for a quick money tour then disappear into oblivion. I know it's all about profit, still, it's stupid.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Am I allowed to LISTEN to individual tracks? Or must I listen an entire Pink Floyd album each time? Will the band sue me if I don't?
I'm quite afraid now that I might be liable if there is a power cut in the middle of listening to one of their albums.
Any legal advice would be appreciated.
Pink Floyd will let their albums be unbundled when pigs fly. Oh wait...http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/01/P1000184.JPG
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
Couldn't you say all that equally applies to the preceding track as well? I hear what you're saying, but what I'd rather have is a "don't play this song on its own" flag. We're all different, of course - since I prefer listening to Albums rather than using shuffle anyway.
FYI, I hate hearing money by itself. I really do feel that song loses all of its meaning when played outside the album
But no, the artists can say what they want and choose to sell their art in whatever manner they please. They can also tell you how to enjoy it.
But you. You are obviously not bound by the artists interpretation of their own work. If you disagree with it,agree with it, are apathetic towards the artists interpretation, its still art.
Art is in the ears of the behearer...
An oldie, but a goody.
Go out to your local clubs and see live music, played on real instruments, by real musicians.
Where I grew up, one of the local stations used to play The Wall (and I think Dark Side of the Moon, sometimes) regularly on Sunday nights. But it's not surprising you haven't heard the full albums on the radio: the radio is not a medium suited to celebrating long-running conceptual music.
That's actually a pretty good suggestion for a feature. It'd be cool to even just be able to do an "album shuffle" mode where all the songs on an album are played in order before randomly selecting the next album.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Pink Floyd songs are "unbundled" when they are played on the radio as singles.
Ever since the advent of the long-playing record as the popular music medium, many artists have been making music that flows for 20 to 45 minutes, not just music that lasts for 3 or 4 minutes. Sure, singles still got made, but most real artists thought in terms of albums, not songs. The CD reinforced that model, allowing artists to flow their music for even longer. Even on albums that appear to be mostly singles, a lot of thought went into how they were arranged on the record.
The advent of itunes killed this. And it's a shame. Young music marketers don't even think beyond 5 minutes of music. Would Thick as a Brick, Tommy, Sgt. Pepper, The Who Sell Out, Brain Salad Surgery, 2112, Ziggy Stardust or any of the Pink Floyd or any number of classic albums even be able to be made in this new "single" only model?
Floyd has their money, they want to keep their integrity.
I feel like this is an argument of which the labels were fighting. And now they are using it as an excuse. Contract law my friend, if it states the album cannot be partially distributed, tough shit EMI, it can't be distributed in pieces. I dont care if it is physical means or digital download, it is still being distributed, and being distributed in violation of contract.
Im a troll because I disagree with you.
Face it Pink say an opportunity to get more money from EMI and possibly get back rights to their music by showing breach. It's about money nothing more, nothing less. Which one is Pink anyway?
I read on the Internet that The Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd appear to have some interesting coincidences. For a couple hours I've been listening to the soundtrack of the Wizard of Oz and staring at the album cover. It's truly bizarre because after about twenty minutes the little prism thingy looked like it was floating in space. I don't get the "No place like home" piece at the end though.
...I've already pirated their whole discography anyway.
Circumcision is child abuse.
From the BBC article:
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."
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
rip your own album as a single mp3
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
If not radio, then what's the proper venue to promote works of recorded music to people under 21 who are not sitting at computers?
Most of the big star bands probably were cheated out of quite a lot of money by slimy accounting practices, and PF is probably just trying to recoup part of that since they found a good excuse to go to court:
A good point, certainly. A way to flag sets of songs as 'linked' would be another way to do it. That said, I don't find as irritating when something starts on broken segue as when it ends with one, but as you say, we're all different. The reason I suggested the "Continue On..." is that it would be dead simple to implement, and wouldn't require manually flagging your playlists.
Also, my foobar2000 player on my home computer has a feature which is close...when in Shuffle mode, if I highlight any other track than the one that is playing, it will play that song next then continue on its shuffle, which also works for the preceding as well if desired.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
bar. It's just annoying.
It's called a title bar, not a first sentence bar.
"EMI said the contract only applied to physical albums, not Internet sales"
I am still trying to picture how you buy a single song from a physical album.
This makes sense for all of their albums past Meddle (well, including Meddle, really), since they were "concept albums" and are intended to be listened to straight through. There are very few Pink Floyd tracks that can be appreciated to the fullest as a single track.
Sadly, this is something that is lost on record labels today; they're in it for the quick buck rather than slowly nurturing future stadium-filling dinosaurs. Why invest in real artists who are composers, lyricists and musicians and will sell only to a cult following for the first 2-3 albums until they hit critical mass and make it really big, when you can just hire some young skank with big tits who can barely sing but is listenable when you run her voice through three levels of vocal processing, and you have songs already written by other writers and just need a pretty face to make a quick buck selling music and of course posters and other merchandise? Instead of making huge profits down the road they're in it for the now, with a steady stream of moderately-selling hits, and when the "pop artist" proves to be a train wreck and wigs out after a drug overdose or breakup or other drama queen crap, you already have songs and session musicians ready to be paired up with another young skank you can market.
I miss concept albums; most such artists recorded before my time (mostly my parents' generation) but progressive rock is my favorite genre. I can listen to practically very Pink Floyd album over and over and over again without getting sick of them. There are not many artists or even genres I can say that about, except possibly classical. In fact, most progressive rock is concerned about structure/form and quality that it could almost be considered a modern form of classical. It's not the overcompressed, over-processed vocals crap that has no semblance of dynamic range that passes for "pop" music today. Listen to Umagumma sometime; it was intended to be a purely experimental album (they did some really funky stuff including even partially disassembling pianos and modifying them) in its time (a double album with a live recording disc as a bonus) and the members of PF are embarassed about it today, but it's still really interesting to listen to with the volume turned up. The dynamic range is phenomenal and that alone makes it worth listening to, and Rick's tracks in particular are really enjoyable. Roger's tracks, well, they're just weird, especially "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict" (I didn't even have to look up the title to check it- despite the length it's title not easily forgotten) but the weirdness doesn't detract from its interesting nature.
I'm glad they took this stand. I own every album of theirs (as well as every unauthorised bootleg I've found in music stores, such as "the eclipse" and a few other Italian-origin box sets) and have most of them ripped to my iPhone, and listen to them quite often - and most of the time I listen to them in the order originally intended. The songs are so interelated and transition very well going from one to the other that I think splitting them apart would be a shame, because people who are just discovering the genre now would miss out on fully enjoying the compositions.
I'd love to track down a lot of the ROIO bootlegs (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleg_recording and http://www.pf-roio.de/roio/roio-cd-index-name.html ), especially Pre-animals concerts where they played "raving and drooling" (which I've never heard) and also various recordings of The Wall concerts, especially the part where Roger ad-libs prior to "Run like Hell."
Sadly, I do not own any Pink Floyd works on vinyl. :(
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
While I applaud the decision, it does kinda bum me out. This album was released over 30 years ago. Under the original 1790 copy right laws, this album would have just entered public domain. Thanks to Sony Bono the album wont hit public domain until the earliest of 2084.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
First, good for Floyd for kicking back.
Second, why not just limit Pink Floyd sales to whole albums? So hard?
The only college radio station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is WBCL, the Bible college radio station. The other slots in the 88-92 MHz non-profit band are taken up by WLAB, another Christian station, and NPR affiliates WBNI and WBOI. I seem to remember that IPFW, the local campus of the two big state universities, wanted to start a radio station but couldn't find an open frequency.
Agreed, Roger Waters doing the complete Dark Side of the Moon during his tour a few years ago was spectacular.
On the radio, DJs will frequently take "Us and Them" and meld it in with Any Color you like, Brain Damage, Eclipse to make sense.
My only complaint is that I can't figure out how to make my iPod do this. I've tried using the group function, but still, it's a simple rule: treat all of these songs as one continuous entity in random playlists.
No, I don't want to merge them into one long MP3. They aren't In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Sometimes I'll even want to find and play one separately on purpose. But not in a randomized playlist.
There are some songs, like Have a Cigar and Wish You Were Here, that I like to hear as independent entities in some playlists, but as contiguous music in others. I'd be fine if they played separately when along in their respective playlists and played together if in the same playlist, though being able to specify a mix of both to my choosing would be best.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
There was a single song I wanted to buy from a particular CD on Itunes. They wouldn't sell the individual tracks, requiring me to purchase the full album. I solved this problem by purchasing a used copy of the CD from Amazon. I got a cheaper price, higher quality, and as a bonus, I didn't support the record company!
Word to the music industry: Sell me what i want, or I'll buy it from someone else!
Can you think of something for people who don't live in Finland, France, Norway, Spain, Sweden, or the United Kingdom?
Foobar 2000 does this.
Until I tried to make rhythmbox do the same, I thought this was a fairly standard feature in media players.
so.... you're a girl, huh?
I have yet to hear anything resembling artistic integrity on the radio.
Largely because the DJ's believe they can successfully compete with the music, that people actually prefer to listen to them. How many times have you sworn at the DJ for talking over the intro to Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon"? That riff was the best part of the song, yet they seem to feel no remorse as they step on it.
DJ's exist to pad the time between songs (to cut the royalty costs down) and introduce commercials. Yet they all talk as if we tune in exclusively to listen to them.
Artistic integrity? Yes, it's there, buried under all that compost.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
I've noticed that with the few power metal albums I have by Kamelot. I normally would listen to my mp3s on shuffle, but when I bought (and then ripped) these, I cannot. It just doesn't sound right at all.
This isn't an issue of profit versus art, or even single track versus album, the issue here is that EMI had a god damned contract with the artist that specifically said NOT to do something...which they then did. And then excused it with the thin excuse that "it didn't count" because it only applied to physical albums...which then by their own argument meant they had NO contract rights to electronic distribution.
Any ruling OTHER than overwhelmingly in favor of Pink Floyd would have set a precedent that would basically invalidate all artists rights and let the studios run roughshod over everyone.
So rather than say "yay, Pink Floyd won!", we should be saying "what the fuck did EMI think they were doing?".
also, radio stations should only be able to play entire albums uninterrupted, not a song here and there. or does that kind of publicity not bother the art?
For that matter, think of all the symphonies that are sold by movement. Separately... :)
Include concertos or sonatas and the list grows:
i dont give flying fsck whether some band thinks that all the songs in their album are unparaleled pieces of art and worthy of praise. even if the band is pink floyd or any other established legend. i dont want to shell out cash for 10-14 songs, while i find only 2 worth paying for.
shove it pink floyd. shove it up your wall.
Read radical news here
Currently, iTunes is still selling the individual tracks.
Sugapablo
You could merge your PF music files together, so they play as intended, and possibly make edited versions of those few songs you want "in the mix" with more radio-ish fade-outs.
Somehow, I don't think they'd have such a problem if the entire album was offered as a single file (or possibly two, for the A/B sides), rather than discrete tracks.
.
From the article
The judge also ruled on a second issue, the level of royalties paid to the band. That section of the judgment was made in private after EMI argued the information was covered by commercial confidentiality.
I suspect the real issue here was EMI paying a lower royalty fee for online salve vs a contract set rate for album sales.
Winning in this case puts Puck Floyd in the driver seat when it comes to negotiating a new online sales contract with EMI.
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
Those were released as singles, and are probably available as singles, and the band agreed to those being released individually. What EMI can't do, by analogy, is take each of the 12 apostles from The Last Supper and exhibit them as individual works of art or sell prints of them. You can buy the entire work and then select individual parts for personal enjoyment, just like I can play a single track from my CD of Dark Side of the Moon, so your ability to enjoy their art in the way that you wish is not compromised.
Pink Floyd's music is meant to be listened to as a whole, albums are (the good ones) carefully prepared and are one piece of music story.
Yeah, but see, the thing is, I don't give a shit what Pink Floyd thinks. I understand the artistic process, etc., but at what point does an artist just become an asshole and go from "this is what I intended" to "you are only allowed to experience my art in ways I dictate?" I thought the whole POINT of art is yes, the artist made something, but on the other hand, it is up to the viewer to take whatever he/she will from the experience? AFAIK, lots of art COMES FROM seeing one thing and doing something else with it. How many great things have we seen happen in the computer world, for example, when someone uses some hardware or software in totally unexpected ways? In fact, isn't that where MOST great things come from?
I don't care what PF wants. If I want to listen to "Comfortably Numb" for a few minutes and something else before and after, isn't that my right?
That said, as far as the contract goes, I go with PF and the judge on this one. Doesn't mean PF aren't pretentious assholes in the first place.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I have yet to hear anything resembling integrity on the radio.
Fixed that for you
are OK with it.
That's a long and involved post, but it fails the logic test. You have created a false dichotomy in that this is not an either/or situation. There is also a straw man in there.
...although I've also heard Astronomy Domine on the radio and that was never a single...
If EMI is going to argue that the contract only applied to physical albums, then by what was EMI claiming that they had the right to sell the songs online? Either the contract applies to everything and they did not have the right to sell individual tracks, or they did not have the right to sell the music online at all.
So stop listening to the radio? There is no integrity when the provider only wants your ear, not your heart.
Glad to hear it! I'm all for digital downloads, but I'm more for artists having control over how their music is distributed.
One of the local stations used to play Grateful Dead concert bootlegs, uninterrupted late at night, once a week. They'd warn you that you were about to hear the concert from X date, and you were going to need a tape of X length to capture it at the beginning.
They are not a commercial radio station.
You wanna make money, amuse the fools with light content and mix in lots of advertisements that pay the bills. You want art, you have quarterly begathons where you appeal to the listeners that "we don't make you listen to commercials, please give us money so we can keep sharing this relevant art with you."
There's a lot more fools and advertisers trying to reach those fools than there are connoisseurs who can underwrite radio stations. There are a lot more radio stations attempting to serve the former audience than the latter.
A few players have something a bit like this: Album shuffle. Where it plays one album from start to finish, then shuffles on to a new random album.
The only places I've seen that, though, is in Foobar (win) and Rockbox (for iPod 5.5 and down, and a few other portable players)
What?
Pink Floyd's music is meant to be listened to as a whole, albums are (the good ones) carefully prepared and are one piece of music story.
Says them. I am a fan of Pink Floyd's music but I can't remember the last time I listened to one of their albums end to end. Just because they claim it is a single piece of music doesn't mean I have to agree with that assertion. I think the fact that they don't sell it as a single track belies Pink Floyd's argument. If it really was one piece of music, why have separate tracks? There is no point or purpose to them. By dividing them into separate tracks they are making a clear statement that these are separate works even if they bundle them together.
I really don't care if there is an underlying coherency to the music or not. I don't care if the whole thing is intended to be a single work. I don't care in the slightest about the artistic integrity of the album. There are parts of The Wall I like and parts I'm indifferent to. Same with their other albums. Pink Floyd can sell their music any way they want but I don't have to buy it. Some of their work is better than other bits. I'm not about to fork over money for the bits I don't like. Pink Floyd has made millions over the years and they don't need my money to pay the bills.
They feel that they didn't make individual pieces, they made a whole, and they feel that it should only be sold as a whole.
Pink Floyd can say whatever they want and they've made their millions so they can do whatever they want in the name of "artistic integrity" but I think that argument is nonsense. If it was a single work then why did they make individual tracks? Fact is the songs on their albums are discrete works which can be listened to independently. Their albums are rarely listened to in their entirety - a fact I'm sure they are well aware of.
They can sell their works however they want and I'm fine with that but I don't have to buy them if I don't like the format. I happen to own several of their albums and like Pink Floyd's music but not all their music is of equal quality. There are several albums of theirs I only like a few tracks on and I haven't bought the whole album because of that fact. I could not care less about Pink Floyd's opinion about whether their albums are a single work. I'll listen to it the way I want to and buy it only in the format I want. If they won't sell it to me in that format, that is their loss, not mine.
Thats easily done with iTunes and probably other media organizers/whatever. I add "FullAlbum" to the comment field for those songs/albums. Rather than use iTunes Shuffle feature I then have a smart playlist that filters out FullAlbum songs and other stuff I don't want showing up randomly. I use that playlist as a base for my other playlists and when I feel like Shuffle, I just set the main playlist to random. its not perfect, but it works.
unlimited supply e.m.i.
there is no reason why e.m.i.
i tell you it was all a frame e.m.i.
they only did it 'cos of fame e.m.i.
i do not need the pressure e.m.i.
i can't stand those useless fools e.m.i.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
When EMI released Pink Floyd singles, such as Money, Comfortably Numb, or ABitW Part 2, etc., wasn't that considered "unbundling"?
You should try a complete album. Listen at night in the dark with good headphones. Then you'll see why they want it sold that way.
If an author puts out a collection of short stories, why should that author be required to sell them individually?
Who said anything about "required"? Pink Floyd can do whatever they want. However I don't have to buy the whole compilation if I only like one chapter/song on the work. I don't give a damn whether Pink Floyd regards it as a single work or not. I like some of the songs and not others and I'm not interested in paying for the ones I don't like. If Pink Floyd has a problem with that, they can go cry about it to their accountant.
For Pink Floyd this is about artistic integrity, not profit. They've already made their money. For EMI it's all about profit, and that's why Pink Floyd put that provision in the contract.
This is a win for Pink Floyd, and a loss for labels who think they can do whatever they want.
Oh please. Pink Floyd has every right to do this, but they're being either very weird or just plain hypocritical. For all of the talk of artistic integrity, and about how the songs are a seamless whole, they have no problem with the individual songs being played as singles on radio stations to sell the albums, do they?
I think this has more to do with "make people buy the whole album" than it does with any artistic vision.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I'd take that one step further, I wish mp3 players were designed with a easy "Continue on to next track" feature for random play.
They do. It's called "turn off shuffle play".
I use Audacity or Cool Edit to splice the tracks together, then save it as one big track for my mp3 player.
There are MANY rock classics that are just meant to be played back to back in a 2 or 3 song set.
In addition to the tracks you listed, there are others by Journey, Steve Miller, Queen, Alan Parsons Project, ELO... the list goes on.
A symphony is sometimes broken up into different pieces.. it's all part of one master work but there are clear cut changes in the sound and mood.
And it is very common to play only one movement from the overall piece. It's also common to sell these performances separately from the overall work. A movement from a symphony is typically a work that can stand on its own merits. Likewise, most of Pink Floyd's songs have merit on their own, whether or not they are included in the larger work.
I run foobar2000 on my home machine and love it. As for Rockbox, my biggest disappoint when I bought my 80gb iPod Classic was that Rockbox won't run on it, and likely never will due to Apple's hardware restrictions. Too bad no one else matches the storage capacity of an iPod; it's the best player hardware out there, IMO, but I could do without the "Apple's way or no way at all" design.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Those guys, even when they were young, made albums that were consolidated works of art. They didn't consist of a single surrounded by filler. Watch the documentary about The Dark Side of the Moon album on Netflix. Even today, as old as they are, they can pick up an instrument and play and you're transported back to listening to the album and the emotions you felt. There is meaning behind their music.
No comparison between them and the garbage that is mass produced and lip sync'd on stage today.
I would agree w/them too, in their case, yeah, if they have a contract to keep their songs together in an album for artistic reasons, I 100% agree and understand.
I bought those CDs for a few popular tracks and discovered the rest of the music on the album and am happy they were packaged like they were.
I'm going to go ahead and call BS. What about Delicate Sound Of Thunder? Or for that matter any time they've played live? Do they play each album as a whole, or selections from each? It's nice to see EMI slapped about, as they surely deserve it, but let's please dispense with the idea that this is all about retaining each album as a whole unit.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
On the other hand, come to think of it, another station where I grew up (a commercial, corporate station that played only heavy rotation most of the day) used to play at least two full concerts each Sunday night as well.
Yes, those are different. They agreed to release those as singles. Doesn't change the fact that their contract with EMI says that EMI can not sell their albums as anything but the full album without PF's consent.
Um, I was addressing the concept that Pink Floyd's music "is meant to be listened to as a whole...", not the terms of their contract with EMI. The band's intent apparently was not to ensure the music is heard only as a whole, since they obviously agreed to release songs off those albums as singles. Granted, I far prefer hearing their whole albums, but that romantic view that they were seeking to preserve the artistic integrity of the whole work does not jive with the fact they released albums from those whole works.
I'd take that one step further, I wish mp3 players were designed with a easy "Continue on to next track" feature for random play. I love having my iPod on shuffle, except when playing things that segue like Dark Side of The Moon or Abbey Road or Frank Zappa's Apostrophe. When a tune like "Brain Damage" comes on, it would be nice to have an one-push feature that will continue to "Eclipse", as opposed to Floydus Interruptus.
When that happens, simply switch your random mode from "songs" to "albums". I do that all the time. Alternately, you can do what I've done in a couple of cases (Tool's Parabol/Parabola and Disposition/Reflection), which is to combine the two tracks into a single track using something like Audacity.
"I know together we'll make the possible totally impossible" - Homme
Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon. May shed some light for folks unfamiliar w/how these guys put albums together.
http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=60030169&trkid=496682
Your local university probably puts lots of these on. There's a lot of talent in college music programs, and you can usually go hear it for free.
Seriously, I don't understand this part:
"Pink Floyd sued, claiming EMI was violating the contract, whereas EMI said the contract only applied to physical albums, not Internet sales."
Are they saying: "Oh no, Your Honour, we did not violate the agreement, because there was no agreement covering these sales. We just copied the music without permission and sold it on the Internet."
And they think that this would not be worse than merely splitting an album without permission?
Interesting... timeframe? I thought that "artsy on commercial stations" pretty much stopped by the mid 1980's.
kill all black people.
But that's not a good reason to go around doing it.
Not flamebait! Calling someone a hypocrite using false facts and little to no coherent arguments == flamebait. Calling someone a hypocrite with correct facts and sound arguments != flamebait.
Would the masses in here howl out at the evil studio locking down content? For instance, Disney withholds titles from sale. Are they evil, or is it artistic integrity?
This program was on until at least 97 or 98, if I remember correctly. For all I know it may still be on, but I've moved and I stopped listening to the radio around 97 or 98.
Good morning Worm, Your Honor,
The Crown will plainly show the prisoner who now stands before you,
Was caught red-handed stealing,
Stealing Floyd's music for online sale.
This will not do...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's getting very close to running on the Classic. Some of the newer players have been decrypted due to a bug in the Notes app allowing unsecured code to run. The 2nd gen Nano is working now, and it was the first encrypted player.
I love being able to buy individual tracks. I ripped all my CDs, and some of the oldest CDs are scratched to hell. CDParanoia did a better job than I had any right to expect, but some of the tracks are still unbearable. I'm willing to pay a $1 "stupid tax" for not taking care of my CDs, but I'm not going to purchase the whole album again.
Car radios often have the option ‘album shuffle’. Which means: shuffle all tracks on this album... I made the error to press that button more than once!!!.
Shuffle by album as you meant, random shuffling the album sequence instead of the track sequence makes a lot more sense to me, especially with 20-album MP3 CDrs in the player.
Floyd won their case, but this is going to cost them a shitload of money.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Hanging on in silent desperation is the English way.
*quiet* desperation
Sweet! That is very good news.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Another point worth making is that the record companies actually use (some of) the concepts to do with physical media (i.e. breakage) when applied to online distribution. Am I being overly cynical to note that they will only IF the monetary advantage goes to the record company as opposed to the artists?
All radio stations, and college stations with great music among them, are shifting focus to the internet more and more over the years. As the tubes become more pervasive, this becomes easier to listen to the computer than the radio. So you'll get less local music, but you can get good stuff from around the world.
Stupidity is its own reward.
If song royalties were the limiting factor, you would hear more talk during late night/early morning hours when ad revenue is at the lowest rates.
An hour of radio play containing only songs would have on average 16 songs. Add an average of 9 minutes of commercial content and another 1 minute of news and you are down to 12-13 songs. A DJ might talk for 3-6 minutes per hour (unless it is a morning show), which only reduces the song count by another 1-2 songs. Most stations are paying considerably more for their DJ's than they are for their audio royalties.
Morning shows are different math. The point of a show is to provide image for the station, to set it apart from others in the same format. For that reason, morning shows on music stations are often 30+ minutes of talk over the hour, which only leaves time for 4-6 songs in between commercial breaks. In some strange twist, most stations now run syndicated morning show content. It could be argued that this is the exact opposite of the desired effect, namely promoting an independent image. Additionally, morning shows often run 2-4 minutes more commercial time than the remainder of the station schedule. This is in part to make up for the cost of talent, in part because the segue from talk to commercial to talk is smoother (and causes less station switching) than comparable all-music formats, and in part because morning shows are during peak listener hours and get the highest per-minute ad rates.
YMMV.
-1 raving lunatic; +6 subGenius... Things even out...
...if you're stupid enough to part with good money just for the pleasure of having your hard disk heads move in such a way so as to create some crappy, lossy music files on your PC, then you're probably too stupid to appreciate their music...
Sorry, kiddies, but you need to face some facts - the vast majority of modern music is about elevating talentless people into the limelight as quickly as possible so they're too shell-shocked to demand too much in royalties; this maximises record company profits & means they're also cheap to dump when they start getting too greedy.
This in turn implies that due to a lack of musical ability, they're incapable of producing music albums that have more than one or two good tracks on them, thus explaining why the modern "great unwashed" now want to treat music like "Pick N Mix" sweeties and just choose the tracks they like (which also happen to be the only ones that are any good).
So speaking as the complete and utter music snob that I am, let me sit here and do nothing else but enjoy my nice hi-fidelity, old-fashioned Pink Floyd music CDs from start to finish on my nice expensive hi-fi system whilst you children go off & run around at the gym whilst listening to your "ever so modern" formulaic plastic music...
Rant mode disengaged.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I don't know anybody who listens to just a few tracks of DSOTM.
Pleased to make your acquaintance. I haven't seen anyone listen to the album end to end since I was in college - 15 years ago. Tracks from that particular album are played on the radio as standalone pieces all the time.
Heck, the Wall makes no friggin' sense at all if you just pull out...
Only if you actually are following the whole story which is more effort than I've seen most people put into their listening. The *music* is just fine even if you pay no attention to the lyrics. Run Like Hell, Comfortably Numb, Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 are all just fine as standalone works. I listen to them frequently in just that way. Heck the London Philharmonic released a symphonic version of many of those songs (Us and Them - Symphonic Pink Floyd) which proves the point that they can be standalone pieces.
There are many ways to enjoy Pink Floyd beyond just the official dogma. I find it ironic that a group who writes lyrics decrying thought control is so interested in controlling how I listen to my music.
the radio is not a medium suited to celebrating long-running conceptual music.
It can be (I've never listened to that station, I just know it exists), but I'll bet they make a lot more money if they have room for more adverts.
(The BBC does some long-running stuff, but can't really be compared.)
I think the band doeth protesteth a bit much.
Dude, don't unbundle that subject line.
well how they then sell it on online? how they price it, it is one song or it is a just album? :) or is they sell it on online at all anymore? :)
www.granstrom.fi
And again: exhibit to the contrary, commercial radio.
If we had never heard hear 'Another Brick In The Wall Part II' standing on its own played ad nauseum, Pink Floyd would have an argument. But, well. They didn't stick up for their 'artistic integrity' then did they?
We've already heard single tracks cut out of context from Floyd albums. Shock horror!The world didn't end!
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
I'd take that one step further, I wish mp3 players were designed with a easy "Continue on to next track" feature for random play.
Let's take it two steps further and force any mp3 taken from a concept album to never be played on its own without the entire rest of the album! Like DVD unskippable tracks.
That'd be great for artistic integrity, right?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Just listen to "The Wall" or "Dark Side of the Moon". They're both stories told in song across multiple tracks.
One of the lessons that the music industry learned from working with bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane was "Don't even *think* about giving them creative control and unlimited studio time when they've also got access to psychedelics!" The studios were trying to figure out why it was a year later and the drummers were talking about recording "the sound of thick air" so they could alternate it with "the sound of thin air", when the studios wanted them to be talking about "Let's ship this on Tuesday". (Some quite nice work came out of that period, but it did take forever to get it finished...)
I have yet to hear an entire Pink Floyd album played on the radio.
That probably just means you're too young to remember radio stations whose format was termed "album rock". I've heard Dark Side, Animals, Wish You Were Here, and Meddle all played as entire albums on the radio. DJs loved it back then because it gave them nice long breaks. These days where everything is computerized, it's not an issue. Hell, I can set my computer up on random play with no repeats and it'll run for a month before it runs out of material.
This is an ex-parrot!
Sure, there are some people who are going to just download one track of "Another Brick In The Wall" from whatever's replaced Napster this decade, but it's not really going to hurt Pink Floyd - some of those people will go get the whole album, and like the creativity and mood, and maybe recommend it to their friends or buy lots more albums. The real commercial question is what happens to sales of "The Wizard of Oz".
There are bands that play covers of Pink Floyd - the Austin Lounge Lizards did Brain Damage as a fast bouncy bluegrass piece (funny, but boy is it twisted and wrong in all sorts of ways :-)
Poor Man's Whiskey did a whole album of "Dark Side Of the Moonshine" - mostly as straight a cover as you can do using bluegrass, with a few exceptions like replacing "Money" with "Whiskey".
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Glib but largely irrelevant reply. The question is whether, analogously, PF should be able to prevent radio stations from playing single songs from their albums on grounds of "artistic integrity". Or perhaps PF should be able to prevent me from hitting FF on my music player to skip what I consider a boring song on their album.
Actually, the analogies above are somewhat misleading, but they at least tell you that there's a serious question about how far artist control should extend. And as someone pointed out, the only reason they have any control at all is because of copyright law, so it's not some natural right we are obviously supposed to defend!
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
Agreed. Any other band and I'd call bullshit but Pink Floyd wrote albums, not songs.
I'm not even a big fan (I don't own anything by them actually) but I've been exposed to them enough to know that they're not just being assholes.
I guess you are comparing a DJ too much with a common jukebox.
A real DJ entertains his guests by throwing them a storyline of music. They mix the music so the public will be able to continue to move on their groove.
Nothing to do with royalties and all that; nothing with commercials; just plain mixing music in a way it doesn't disturb the dancing flow.
Radio Jockeys are quite the same; only they won't have their dancing crowd to attend but their listeners. The entertaining factor stays the same; wether the crowd is dancing or getting entertained by listening to 'm. A good DJ knows when to mix what on the right moment and will feel together with its audience. A Jukebox doesn't since it'll only play on command.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Then why'd they release a greatest hits album?
Flip the album cover while the first track is still playing and select the next track. It's not one click but two is still pretty good.
they just has a ... momentary lapse of reason
And the eternal copyright of such essential works as "100 Polka Classics: The Greatest Accordion Collection On Earth" have turned me off of commercial music for good. There is no way that anybody involved in that making that work got paid if I pay to download it.
BTW: Track 41 isn't bad: "Yes, we have no bananas."
Help stamp out iliturcy.
This would be great for classical music too. Concertos and symphonies should be heard as complete works, not as randomly selected movements.
IMHO an excellent introduction to genres and standards in each genre (which is very different from commercial radio playlists) is AOL Radio (http://music.aol.com/radioguide/bb), powered by CBS radio. It features more channels (genres) that you'd ever be interested to, and at least with regard to my fields of interest (Jazz Fusion, Progressive Rock, Ambient and Classic Rock) they are doing a hell of a job. While I specialise in these genres for some 35 years, I keep discovering new stuff.
They are currently trying to limit accessibility outside US using geolocation, but they're (thankfully still) doing it wrong (read recent Winamp support forum posts for a workaround).
The best in AOL radio is:
a) It's (still) completely subscription/registration-free. I'd never register to Last.fm - I want nobody to know what I'm listening to and profit from it.
b) It features minimal advertisement.
c) The song rotation model is optimal - there is some repetition from day to day, but it's songs you never get tired listening to.
d) Talking as an ex-amateur real radio producer, I couldn't have done it better myself if I were to introduce these genres to a general audience.
If they totally block access outside US using firewalls, I will seriously consider protests and petition models to bring it back.
Just like you did our albums.
Sincerely,
Roger, Nick, Syd (in spirit), Roger, and David, the fantastic band (you guess which one is Pink).
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
for us old schoolers... that'll be two mp3s if you don't mind...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Wizard of Oz should not be sold with out Dark Side of the Moon. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Side_of_the_Rainbow
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
fuck artist's rights
consumer's have the power here
yes, the law says distributors and artists have "rights," but the technology proves the consumers have actual control
the technology trumps the law
this court case is pure absurdity. it could have ruled just as easily that pink floyd has the right to pink corsets or emi has the right to eat concrete: same real world effect
intellectual property law is simply defunct. arguments made in a courtroom over what should happen on the internet simply have no meaning, because there is no control possible. at least without radically warping the internet in ways countries with strong protections for individual freedoms would never stomach, even with the all the media industry paid-for government whores
oh sure, they can sue the occasional soccer mom whose kids' friends alter her computer or occasional grandmother with unsecured wifi. and? that's what they call control?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A simple analogy: chapters of a book.
They could accomplish the same thing with a pause. Putting it into a separate track is a clear statement that it is a standalone work. There is no other reason to make it a track. Pink Floyd has also regularly released tracks from their music as singles which further indicates that they can be regarded a standalone works.
However even if we accept that it is like a chapter, it is quite possible to purchase and enjoy a single chapter of a book. It might lack the overall cohesion of the entire work but that doesn't mean it isn't a fine work by itself.
There also have been cases where authors have sold individual chapters of a book as well as books that are a part of a larger work. You can buy the Lord of the Rings as a single work or as a complete volume and it's wonderful reading either way. Comic books are probably the best example of selling a work in installments. The overall story arcs are typically much longer than the individual comic.
If [author] thought their book was a single work, why did they make individual chapters
Books are frequently divided up and sold in smaller pieces. You can buy the Lord of the Rings as a single volume or as separate books. The story of Harry Potter is sold in seven parts. I've even seen authors sell individual chapters to books. Comic books are typically sold in tiny chapters that are a part of a much larger story arc. Television has discrete episodes that can be enjoyed independent of the larger story arc. I've read many chapters of books that could be sold as separate works. The fact that the author chose to bundle a set of chapters together for the sake of sales (or "artistic integrity" if you buy that nonsense) is a completely separate issue. The fact that a larger work has smaller component pieces does not make the smaller pieces impossible to enjoy on their own.
If Pink Floyd thought it was a complete work, they could have simply put a pause in between the songs. Instead they made them tracks which is a clear indication they thought that piece of music could stand on its own merits. If they don't want to sell it that way, that's their (bizarre) choice but I'll listen to their music the way I want to and I don't give a damn what Pink Floyd thinks.
Pink Floyd can sell their work any way they chose. Likewise I can choose to buy their music in only the formats I'm satisfied with. Nice how it works out that way.
Why did classical composers split their works into movements?
You are aware that movements are frequently played and enjoyed as an independent work, right? Ode To Joy is frequently played separately from the rest of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. It's quite possible to divide up a larger work into smaller pieces and have the smaller pieces be enjoyable all on their own. Happens all the time in music, literature, television, movies and even dance.
It is true that radio stations are shifting focus to the Internet. Allow me to try to clarify my reply's connection: If your station has shifted focus to the Internet, listening to it in a moving vehicle is probably cost prohibitive for anyone who doesn't already have a smartphone and a spare GB per month on the data plan.
when they can protect Pink Floyd's artistic integrity by pirating the whole album. Pirates are MUCH more respectful of Pink Floyd's wishes than EMI is.
I would argue that Pink Floyd intended for their albums to be listened to as a whole, but that the reality of the music business meant that they had to release singles during the time of those album releases. I would also argue that when writing up their contract with EMI they decided that they would prefer people listen to the whole concept album rather than one catchy song. I mean, is it really that bad that they regret the singles being release and wish to rectify that in the future?
And you can listen to Comfortably Numb with something else before and after. Though they do suggest that it is better with "Bring the Boys Back Home" before it and "The Show Must Go On" after it. There is nothing preventing you from listing to only one track off the album. Of course if you don't think the entire album is worth purchasing then you're probably not a fan and they probably could care less what you think.
I think their argument is "We signed a contract that said you were allowed to sell our albums as a whole and specifically you were not allowed to sell individual songs. You broke that contract." I think it's a pretty good argument. It was the judge who said the contract protected "the artistic integrity of the albums." Not the band or a spokesperson for the band. In fact there was no comment from the band in the entire article.
Given that they approved individual songs for radio play and the like would seem to indicate that they aren't being pretentious assholes so much as retaining some vestiges of power over the record label. They're not trying to tell you how to listen to the music; they're telling EMI how they can make money off of it.
Musicians need to get over themselves. You don't exist without people buying your music (or if you do, you exist like I do, playing 2 or 3 times a month for fun/free beer). If people want to buy a song without buying the rest of the songs, then so be it. If they can't buy just the one or three they want, then the just won't buy any.