Pink Floyd win High Court battle
Written by Matt   
Thursday, 11 March 2010

The High Court in London this afternoon saw Pink Floyd win their court battle with record company EMI, which started last year and resulted in this week's hearing.

The band's current record deal, dating from 1999, stipulates that individual songs must not be sold without the band's permission. This is to keep the integrity of their albums, many of which were designed to be listened to in their entirety. EMI's view was that this didn't apply to online sales through digital music services like iTunes but the band - and the judge - disagreed.

In court, Chancellor Sir Andrew Morritt pointed out that the contract contained a clause to "preserve the artistic integrity of the albums", and that EMI "were not entitled to exploit recording by online distribution or by any other means other than the original album, without the consent of Pink Floyd".

EMI has been ordered to pay £40,000 ($60,000) costs. Coincidentally enough, there is also speculation in today's press that Pink Floyd, Queen and Paul McCartney could be considering moving record labels due to the difficulties that EMI has recently found itself in.