Court Rules: Pink Floyd No Longer in iTunes

iTunes may no longer say, “Welcome to the machine” to the members of Pink Floyd. BBC news reports that the band have successfully defended their right in court to stop the selling of their song on digital download services like iTunes.

Apparently, the decision to stop the sale of tracks, BBC relates, hasn’t been ordered yet, although no individual song can be now found in the iTunes music store. Yesterday, Thursday, March 11, classical Pink Floyd songs like “Wish you were here” or “Money” were still available for individual sale on the iTunes store at a cost of $1,29. The BBC report also indicates that, “The band largely avoided releasing singles during their career, instead preferring fans to listen to entire albums such as Dark Side of the Moon, which has sold more than 35 million copies around the world.”

Pink Floyd’s original contract with the record label EMI stipulated a clause requiring to “preserve the artistic integrity of the albums,” as the High Court’s Judge Chancellor Sir Andrew Morritt sealed. Therefore, the court’s decision was that EMI might not have the right to distribute the band’s tracks “by any other means other than the original album, without the consent of Pink Floyd.”

The court’s ruling also requires that EMI pay the band $60,000 for the contract violation. This could more likely explain why, as, from today, the Pink Floyd tunes have already been blocked on iTunes.

Last year, labels emerged to introduce whole album digital sales, convincing Apple to create the iTunes LP standard. Yet, the sales turned out to be disappointing, as appleinsider.com relates.

There is a history of digital download issues of music tracks involving other artists into legal battles with Apple. Last year, Eminem required new, separate contracts for the digital distribution of his tracks on the iTunes store that weren’t settled in the original agreement between the artist, Apple and the record label, appleinsider.com adds.

We, the insatiable music listeners, can only hope for better agreement conditions between the artists along with the labels, and Apple in the near future.