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Pink Floyd Win Digital Battle!

by David Brooks | 12.03.2010
Thanks to a High Court ruling that gave Pink Floyd a small victory over record label EMI in a battle over millions in royalties, individual tracks of the legendary rock band’s music could potentially leave the digital world at some point.

The High Court’s ruling was based on a clause in Pink Floyd’s contract with EMI that was designed to enable the band to “preserve the artistic integrity” of its music. According to judge Andrew Morritt, the implication of this was that EMI needed Pink Floyd’s explicit permission to “exploit recording by online distribution or by any other means other than the original album“.

As the BBC explains, Pink Floyd didn’t release many singles. Instead, the band’s songs were meant to ‘go together‘, meaning that fans needed to buy an entire album to experience the product the way Pink Floyd intended. In the digital age, of course, consumers more often than not opt to purchase songs à la carte, and up until now, to Pink Floyd’s dismay, they’ve been able to do that with Pink Floyd music….read more at Brand Republic