Last week Pink Floyd won their court case against EMI, preventing the label selling individual Floyd tracks through digital download stores. The band established that their agreement with EMI required the label to “preserve the artistic integrity of the albums” and not sell individual track. EMI’s defence, that the agreement preceded digital download as a new distribution channel and that it should fall outside the agreement, was rejected.
Apparently Pink Floyd really do feel that each of their albums is an integral whole and their work is diminished by letting fans listen to individual tracks without the ones that precede or follow them. One wonders whether they would, if they could, try to enforce a ban on shuffle function on iPods and other players.
All of which misses the point – only the individual track lives as an entity in the digital world. The album has no meaning other than as an abstract association – like a playlist, only one created by the artist or label.
In January the BPI reported that sales of singles in the UK during 2009 exceeded 152 million, beating 2008′s record of 115 million. In contrast just 16 million albums were sold – a decline of 3.5% on 2008.
It’s a pity that Pink Floyd have taken a stand that ignores the inevitable and seeks to preserve something that cannot be preserved, no matter whether they like it or not. It makes life more difficult for their struggling label and it discourages legitimate acquisition of their music.
As for me, I nearly always buy the album but then I’m almost as old as Dave Gilmour.
