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.'"

Comments

Re:Emi

[xxdinkxx]

all in all, they just ran into a wall.

all in all, it's just another pay wall.

Re:Song flow

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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.

It's just business as usual for the MAFIAA.

Remember the hollywood writers strike 3-4 years ago? The main issue there was getting paid for web-broadcasts and DVDs. Prior to the strike the studios' standard approach to web-broadcasts was to pay no royalties because they weren't charging anything for the downloads. Obviously the advertisements on the webpage and the streaming ads before and during the web-broadcast were generating revenue but because they weren't charging for the broadcast itself (unlike the way they charge affiliates for the right to broadcast over the air) they were paying the writers bupkiss.

The BSG writers even swore off "webisodes" after the first set because Sci-Fi/NBC pulled that shit on them.

Here's what Chuck Lorre (creator of The Big Bang Theory) said about the strike:
http://www.chucklorre.com/index-2hm.php?p=197