Pink Floyd recently filed a law suit against EMI saying it had violated a contract which prohibits the studio from selling Pink Floyd's songs in any form outside of the context of the album. EMI said that offering the songs as single downloads on iTunes was not a violation of the contract because the contract was specifically in regards to physical versions of the band's works. Today Pink Floyd won the suit.
My feelings about this? Well as a Floyd fan I am happy about the outcome. I do feel the need to add a caveat to that reaction however due to the fact that I am one of the biggest critics of some of the bands who forced the Napster issue (like Metallica) and even went to the lengths of purposely downloading all of Metallica's music for free and vowing never to buy a Metallica product (which I temporarily broke in order to purchase Guitar Hero Metallica). But in this case I feel that there is a good and legitimate reason for Pink Floyd to not want their music sold outside of the context of the album's and for anyone familiar enough with Pink Floyd I think the reason is obvious. Pink Floyd did not write songs, they wrote albums. They perform albums. They do have songs that work as singles, but for the most part you can't listen to one without moving onto the next track. You can't listen to Pink Floyd on random without severely damaging the quality of the listening experience. So for that reason I adamantly support the band in their wishes.
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