Pink Floyd Wins Battle Over Downloads
March 11, 2010
As reported yesterday, Pink Floyd sued record label EMI over online royalty payments and asked that the label stop selling single track downloads of their songs. Now it looks like the band already is victorious, as a London judge ruled that the label must sell Pink Floyd records only as full albums in sequential track order. Though Pink Floyd's last contract with EMI was written 10 years ago, before the digital music sales explosion, Judge Andrew Morritt accepted arguments by the group that EMI was contractually bound not to sell Pink Floyd music, other than as complete albums, without written consent. The judge said the purpose of the clause in the contract was to "preserve the artistic integrity of the albums."
The outcome of the other part of the legal issue, concerning the level of royalties paid to the band, was unclear, as that segment of the judgement was held in secret, according to Reuters. EMI successfully applied to the court for the royalties aspect of the case to be kept secret for reasons of "commercial confidentiality." The judge also ordered EMI to pay roughly $60,000 for the band’s legal fees while the court determines how much the label should pay in fines and damages, and he refused the company permission to appeal.
Source: http://www.fmqb.com/article.asp?id=1729519
(That didn't take long to settle, I had a feeling this is how it was gonna go down eventually.)
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