Why EMI Should Beat Pink Floyd
Over the last few years we have criticized the major music labels for their lack of innovation and their inability to adapt their business models to the digital era. Sometimes, however, we have side with a label instead of the artist.
We have been getting quite a few emails about the EMI vs. Pink Floyd rift this week. The band and the label have a dispute over the royalty payments of the music that’s sold though online shops, with Pink Floyd arguing that EMI can’t sell single tracks from the band’s albums.
The comments on most of the reports on this issue have been extremely negative towards the label. “Go for these capitalist pigs throats Pink,” and “EMI and other labels deserve to be bankrupt,” to name a few.
Although we have been very aware of the copyright abuse of some of the major labels and the unfair treatment of some artists, we have to root for EMI in this battle.
Before the MP3 era many people complained bitterly about having to buy a full album if they were only interested in a few songs. Today, people have the choice to pick only the songs they like, but not it is was up to Pink Floyd.
It seems to us that it’s not the greed of the labels but the greed of Pink Floyd that is at the root of this dispute. If the band was so worried about the label “breaking” the album they should have never put out a single either, or allowed single tracks to be played on the radio.
If Pink Floyd would win we might be thrown back in time, being forced to buy full albums, that’s not at all in the interest of the consumer. So, we stand behind a major label for once.
Go EMI.
Update: too late
Eh?
the point is they were selling their tracks without their permission, as they were contractually obliged to. Singularly or as a whole album.
Yet, they waited 5 years or more to bring up this issue. I (personally) don’t buy the artistic excuse, but I obviously haven’t seen the contract.
My main point is that the interest of the consumer shouldn’t be overlooked here, as it will only drive people towards piracy.
Wow awesome, they’ve sold like dozens of millions of copies through 40 years and they are not only still getting money from that music, but also doing legal actions for this ridicolous singles thing.
Fuck Pink Floyd and fuck EMI (this doesn’t mean I don’t love their music).
Now hold on a minute. The people who are into Pink Floyd and want to support them will buy the full album. If they want a specific song they’ll get it from some MP3 site or sharing network as usual. The problem here is this weird juxtaposition of intentions. Usually one would think the labels would be fighting to sell entire albums in order to maximize profits and everyone would complain. Now the ARTist demands his work is distributed as he intended and everyone is complaining about it too. What is it now? I’m a pro-sharing person myself but I also believe that the artist has every right to decide how his work is to be sold. There are enough ways to get it in the way you want anyway. I’ve grown used to the idea that we consumers will have to break/bend laws to get what we really want. It’s like in almost every business. If you buy a car you need to break the law to drive as fast as you want. If you go to a movie you need to sneak in food to avoid the robbery that is concession stands. It’s the sad state of affairs which probably won’t change for a while.
I’m not saying give up the fight for a better situation but stop tearing the world apart over a first step issue like this. EMI is actually having a fucking hard time staying alive right now and it could very well be another 50 years until people have finally all arrived on the internet to see what this is about and what needs to be done. *yawn*
Greed by artists? How’s that possible? They became human suddently?… ;)
Jasper, they always were. They are just as capable of making mistakes as the labels, or us for example.
Back when we bought our music by the album, we only bought it for one or two hit songs. But got a whole bunch of other songs that we never heard from. These usually aren’t as good. So I agree with this post. Just because EMI is a huge litigious publisher doesn’t make them automatically wrong about everything. Nobody is automatically wrong about everything.
I don’t think it’s as simple as you’re stating here. Pink Floyd made provisions to keep their albums complete, and not for monetary reasons, but artistic reasons. Theirs are concept albums, which were made as a whole, not a sum of their parts.
my bias: I’m a Pink Floyd fan
Sounds like some band is butthurt that no one wants to listen to their music anymore.
Truther, I don’t in what parallel universe you live in but in this Pink Floyd is the shut the fuck ups of rock music now and then.
Extremely poorly written article. You must take more English classes before being allowed to create further publications. Terrible English
Yup, I hear ya.
I used to be a big fan but caught on to what they were a number of years ago, now it all rings a bit hollow.
When I hear them, I know every word, but it just annoys me now- I think Sid was right to just walk away, artistic integrity be damned, they’re just really clever business men after every buck they can get.
Here is a link to full story – http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10466342-71.html
I love Pink Floyd, but I do agree they have far too much drama and legal bullshit in their history. However, if someone only wants a few songs off a Pink Floyd album they dont deserve to be listening to them. Most of the time I would agree with selling individual tracks, but in this case it needs to be all or nothing. If you dont agree you probably wouldnt be buying any Pink Floyd songs anyways so your input is not relevant.
Pink Floyd is an Album experience group. They have a contract making that so! The contract is legal and binding. So, what’s the problem here. Don’t you like Pink Floyd.
Just another personal rant me thinks!
Oh yeah and EMI is on the verge of Bankruptcy, helped no doubt by all those Pirate Scum
@GuySum
EMI are going out of business because they haven’t kept up to date with everything else. I’ve seen the EMI setup. They haven’t moved on from Victorian times. They have no-one to blame but themselves.
If you don’t want to buy the full album, then don’t. Nobody is forcing you to. Why is everyone so upset about this? I bet most complainers have never listed to an album of theirs in full. They were meant to be played as a whole. Also, the remaining members of PF (RIP Richard) don’t care about the money. They are all in their 60s and doing just fine financially. Their generation actually cared more about the music.
Pink Floyd rarely released singles. They always were an album band.
I think this is the right decision as their albums tell a story. Nobody, for example, would dream of downloading just a single chapter from a novel…
Some tracks from The Wall (for example) make absolutely no sense played on their own and offer poor value for money as individual tracks.
If Pink Floyd were to have known that their albums would have been sold in bits, they’d have written 45 minute albums with one track only. That’s Pink Floyd.
It’s like selling a movie by the scene, rather than as a movie — Pink Floyd’s music was just not designed to be listened to in small pieces, just as a movie is meant to be seen from start to finish.
Most music is NOT like Pink Floyd. I’d side with the label if it were almost any other artist.
“If Pink Floyd were to have known that their albums would have been sold in bits, they’d have written 45 minute albums with one track only. That’s Pink Floyd.”
That, is the beauty of Pink Floyd.
As a lot of other commenters have pointed out, Pink Floyd are not some garbage boy band with an album consisting of 1 or 2 tracks that are good. The whole albums are good, and are meant to be listened to as a whole.
Purchasing a Pink Floyd single would be like purchasing a chapter of a book. Have you ever listened to a Floyd album, Ernesto?
Agreed. You need to listen to the whole album.
I admit to occasionally listening to single tracks off an album, but I’ve already listened to the albums numerous times, so I can make sense of something that’s out of place..
Plus sometimes I’m just in the mood for a good guitar solo as well.
But regardless of that, it is their music. Let them have it sold/distributed as they want.
They’re not doing it for monetary reasons, but artistic ones.
“The last thing we want to be doing is going to war with our fan base,” said Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason. “File sharing means a new generation of fans for us.”
This is seriously wrong. And don’t come with “they make concept albums so ppl should buy the complete albums” argument. I buy what I want. Same goes for every person and if I want a single song from a concept album it’s my own problem.
Ernesto has written a sensible article here. However, I must agree that the work belongs to Pink Floyd and thus they should be the ones deciding where and how it should be sold.
Whatever they choose to do they must be aware of the consequences. Restricting the consumer choices will lead to piracy and, in this case, they will lose money. The Guardian published a nice piece of news recently showing that digital sales of singles has skyrocketed – this is plain proof that what consumers want is to get whatever they want the way they want and they are willing to pay, despite all whining about piracy hurting their business.
I got this article bookmarked on my lappie. Will post it later here.
cheers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/mar/12/demise-music-industry-facts
Here, have fun. As much as I`d like to see some ‘blood spilled’ within those companies so they could see their mistakes they are doing great. Well, this is good too, we don’t really want them dead but we want them on our side and evolving with us.
Sure, Pink Floyd did release concept albums, but.. They also released collections.. Guess that is “the concept of best of”.
Btw, Echoes on Meddle is a whole b-side (23.27..). You would get half the album for the price of one song.
As a long, long time PF fan I have always hated the plasi-floyd fans. You know the ones, they come up to you and tell you how much they like them too, except when you rattle off the names of a few songs or albums they stare at you clueless. Turns out they just like Another Brick In The Wall and Money. These kind of *ahem* “music lovers” get on my nerves. They don’t love music. They’re not PF fans. They just like a extremely narrow band of music, all sounding very similar, and which the odd PF song happens to fit. They are the Only-Like-1-Song crew… as long as it sounds like the rest of the stuff they like.
They call themselves “fans” and “music lovers”. I call them wankers.
Oh and just to add… the above is usually coupled with an inability to spend enough time and attention to actually listen and appreciate a full albums worth of music. What these people want is throwaway 3-minute pop tunes. That’s why they buy “singles” but hide behind some kind of self-righteous “There’s only 2 good tunez on the CD” b.ullshit.
When you’re talking about Robbie Williams you might have a point. When you’re talking about PF it’s because YOU ARE NOT A FUCKING FAN OK.
So keep your 1-song b.ullshit to yourselves and leave the works of integrity to the true music lovers and fans. Don’t be giving me your fuking McD mentality.
That’s a ridiculous, consumerist statement to make. If they want their album to be sold in whatever way, that’s their call. That’s the point of creative control. They make the decision, not EMI. Anyone backing EMI for the sake of being able to save a couple of dollars is missing the whole point. If you want one hit song, record it off of the radio. Buying the record in it’s full form still benefits EMI, and supporting their ability to undermine an artist’s creative control is short sighted, walmart mentality.
I don’t feel sorry for the bands, or EMI. I’m a software author, and have worked harder with my teams to create hugely complex software works taking more creative energy than bands have to create their music, and I sure don’t get paid royalties for any of my past works over 30 years.
Sheesh, Pink Floyd’s music was made in the 60s and 70s, 40-50 years ago! Do you think you’re going to get royalties (or deserve them) on work you did 40 years earlier when you are 60 years old? It’s preposterous! And the same for RIAA & other recording companies! They can get off their asses and find new talent to record instead of trying to find an income stream in 40 year old music and in suing people for copying old stuff.
PF has always produced ‘concept’ albums – something long lost in the pop craze nonsense we have today.. and they never released a single! wtf are talking abt?
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Pink+Floyd
ctrl+f “single” 1 of 26
hmm?
Every article I read on this site has at least one typo… pretty hard to take it seriously…
what a joke of an article. totally missed the point and sounded like it was written by a 6 year old. try harder
Doesn’t Pink Floyd have enough money, after all, isn’t Dark Side of The Moon the best selling album, ever? Are they really against distributors selling singles instead of the entire album?
Most of their albums you would want to buy the whole thing anyways… Dark Side of The Moon, Wish You Where Here, The Wall, Meddle, Division Bell; all of those albums are mostly great for each the songs.
If it’s true that they want to limit people from downloading singles, then once again, I think in the age of the internet, yet another artist has made a complete ass of themselves.
Bands like NIN and Radiohead are more definitely more forward thinking.
i just want to say that before there was mp3′s and the internet we could tape songs off the radio that we liked. it was free and legal and nobody ever cried then???
I hate the whole digital download nonsense. To me, it’s more than just playing it on the MP3 Player. I love the feel of CDs and Vinyls and will keep buying them. The day they stop making them is the day I’ll switch to piracy.