Album lovers may rejoice a little at last: a British court says Pink Floyd, purveyor of iTunes-unfriendly concept records, cannot be unbundled.
The High Court ruled today that record label EMI Group Ltd. can’t sell Pink Floyd tracks individually without the band’s permission. A judge said the band’s contract applied both to physical albums and Internet sales.
Experts said the ruling offers another brick in the wall supporting artists’ control of their own work–and a boost for music fans dismayed by the power of online music retailers to slice and dice albums into individual tracks.
The ruling comes in a long-running legal case that saw Pink Floyd sue its record label, saying its contract prohibited selling songs “unbundled” from their original album setting.
The band’s lawyer, Robert Howe, said the band was known for producing “seamless” pieces of music on albums like “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall,” and wanted to retain artistic control.
EMI claimed the clause in the band’s contract–negotiated more than a decade ago, before the advent of iTunes and other online retailers–did not apply to Internet sales.
But judge Andrew Morritt backed the band, saying the contract protected “the artistic integrity of the albums” in both physical and online form.
He ruled that 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.”
Thursday’s judgment is not the end of the case–merely a clarification on the part of the judge about what the band’s contract with EMI means.
EMI said the ruling was not an end to the complex case, and that the judge’s decision was not an order to stop selling single Pink Floyd tracks. They were still available individually from iTunes on Thursday.
“There are further arguments to be heard and the case will go on for some time,” an EMI spokeswoman said, on condition of anonymity in line with corporate policy.
The judgment is more bad news for cash-strapped EMI, which has struggled financially since it was bought in 2007 for 2.4 billion pounds by private equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners.
The company, whose artists include Coldplay, Lily Allen and Robbie Williams, is currently trying to raise 120 million pounds (US$180 million) by mid-June to meet its commitments on loans from Citigroup.
