Pink Floyd have won a High Court battle to stop their record label EMI selling individual songs online. Signed with EMI since 1967, the British group’s contract spelled out that album works could not be split up without their permission. The band was asking for clarification of their more than 10-year-old recording contract with EMI, Pink Floyd’s lawyer, Robert Howe, said at a hearing in a London court this week. The judge agreed, saying the contract contained a clause to “preserve the artistic integrity of the albums”.
EMI spokesman James Devas declined to immediately comment on the ruling.
Pink Floyd filed the lawsuit in April last year. The band’s contract with EMI says albums are to be sold as a whole with tracks in a specific order and not as singles, Howe said.
While the band said this should include the music sold over the Internet, EMI’s lawyers claimed it only applied to the “physical product†such as compact discs and vinyl records.
“There is nothing in the terms ‘album’ or ‘record’ to suggest they apply to the physical product only,†Justice Andrew Morritt said in his judgment today.
EMI has been ordered to pay £40,000 ($60,000) in costs, with a further fine to be decided.
