Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Pink Floyd Wins Legal Battle Over Digital Sale of Individual Songs

peterdevries said:
In their final tour they mostly did just that.... :p
Click to expand...

Exactly. They see their albums as an entire painting. It may have clouds, trees, and a pond, which are the separate "tracks" of the complete artistic expression. I think people who are on here finding this negative have never actually listened to Pink Floyd, or understood the meaning of their art. When then say "We don't need no education", they actually mean we do need to educate people. Hence the double negative. When they say "Welcome to the machine" they are referring to the "system" we are all in right now. What is the system? Just look around, music industry, Apple, government, ect, it's a system of control. Controlling your experience while making a profit. The only loser in this system is us. Music not only has the power to entertain us, it has the power to open our eyes.
 
To all of you out there who insist that this is driven by lust for profit, let me point out that Pink Floyd has a history of siding with artistry over $$$. The Wall tour in 1980 was performed in Arenas and not the extremely more profitable stadiums, as Roger Waters felt that his opus work railed against the dispassionate setting of stadiums. So at no time did Pink Floyd perform The Wall in a stadium.

In fact they lost a hell of a lot of money on that tour.

Also consider that they could release a concert video from that tour, but they (again Waters) felt against from an artistic standpoint.

Besides, who wants to listen to Just "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" or "Stop" as single songs?
 
rstansby said:
I agree, this is all about money. I love Pink Floyd, and their albums are cohesive works of art. However it should be up to the consumer to decide which tracks to buy.
Click to expand...

Some people on here are taking "consumer rights" too far. If I make an album that I want to sell as a whole and you say you want tracks 1, 4 and 7, I can tell you to screw off if I so choose. Which is exactly what PF is saying. Sure I lost money, but assuming I'm an artist and not a sell out, I can do as I please with what I create. The artist should have all the rights until the art is actually purchased. Then you can go home and listen to tracks 1, 4 and 7 all you want.
 
Bummer. Now music fans will be forced to buy entire albums just to get some of Pink Floyd's best songs ever, including hits like "Sysphus part 4", "New Machine Pt 2", and "Stop". LOL
 
vipergts2207 said:
Some people on here are taking "consumer rights" too far. If I make an album that I want to sell as a whole and you say you want tracks 1, 4 and 7, I can tell you to screw off if I so choose. Which is exactly what PF is saying. Sure I lost money, but assuming I'm an artist and not a sell out, I can do as I please with what I create. The artist should have all the rights until the art is actually purchased. Then you can go home and listen to tracks 1, 4 and 7 all you want.
Click to expand...

The music industry is full of "sell outs", and not many true artist.
 
It's not really a victory over their record label and music e-tailers. It's a victory over their audience.

I am totally about listening to full albums, but I know the way I listen to music is not representative of how others do so. There are some people who will only like one or two songs and so long as they are getting those songs legally, ensuring the artist is rewarded for their work, I am all for it.

This sort of dick move only leads to piracy.
 
thevofl said:
To all of you out there who insist that this is driven by lust for profit, let me point out that Pink Floyd has a history of siding with artistry over $$$. The Wall tour in 1980 was performed in Arenas and not the extremely more profitable stadiums, as Roger Waters felt that his opus work railed against the dispassionate setting of stadiums. So at no time did Pink Floyd perform The Wall in a stadium.

In fact they lost a hell of a lot of money on that tour.
Click to expand...

I read they also made less money than they could have on the origina vinyl version of Dark Side of the Moon becuase they wanted to include posters and stickers inside for the fans.

Also consider that they could release a concert video from that tour, but they (again Waters) felt against from an artistic standpoint.
Click to expand...

They did film the Wall concerts, but somehow it all came out too dark. I'm sure its still sitting in a vault somewhere. I've seen a bootleg video of an original Wall concert. Great stuff.
 
Go buy the track "Ibiza Bar" before it becomes unavailable as a single. Listen to is and you'll realize that Pink Floyd invented grunge music 20 years before anyone ever heard of Nirvana.
 
Dim the lights, smoke some pot, and listen to Dark Side of the Moon straight through on a great sound system. You can thank me later.
 
Artist : Pink Floyd
Song : Money

Money, get away.
Get a good job with good pay and you're okay.
Money, it's a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I'll buy me a football team.

Money, get back.
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my
stack.
Money, it's a hit.
Don't give me that do goody good BS.
I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling
set And I think I need a Lear jet.

Money, it's a crime.
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.
But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that
they're giving none away.

"Hu Huh! I was in the right!"
"Yes, absolutely in the right!"
"I certainly was in the right!"
"You was definitely in the right. That geezer was
cruising for a
bruising!"
"Yeah!"
"Why does anyone do anything?"
"I don't know, I was really drunk at the time!"
"I was just telling him, he couldn't get into
number 2. He was asking
why he wasn't coming up on freely, after I was
yelling and
screaming and telling him why he wasn't coming up
on freely.
It came as a heavy blow, but we sorted the matter
out"

On a personal note:

This is why "We have become, comfortably numb".
 
kernkraft said:
Digital technology only approximates original wavelengths, whereas analog sources, like vinyl mirror them, which is much closer to the original source.
Click to expand...

Yes, but they cannot mirror them perfectly. There are the material properties of the vinyl, the speed of the record i.e. the wave density on the vinyl, and quality of the transfer onto the vinyl. All of these add color to the original waveform. Digital transfers are finitely sampled, so they do loose information, but I think digital audio is much more scalable to higher quality than vinyl, and I think that when people say they like vinyl better, they actually like the coloration that vinyl adds to the original waveform and the the analog way it smooths over its missing information.

I'm sure digital transfers add color too, ADCs are probably not perfectly linear, and there are probably a lot of other things I don't know. But in terms of replicating a reference waveform, I think digital will always win because there is no limitation inherent in the medium you are using to store the information. Vinyl is only strong enough to maintain a certain wave density over multiple plays. I can write as many ones and zeros as I want to a disk.
 
MacHiavelli said:
Albums are outdated (as are Pink Floyd) - this is the muscle spasm of a dying band and a dying industry.
Click to expand...

Yeah, sure. Until the next generation comes up and they're sick of all your "cool" ideas. BTW, it's the band that wants them kept as albums, not the "industry."

The Final Cut is a great example of an album that can't be split apart. Awesome album from an awesome band. Glad to hear they won.
 
This is an album where you cannot just buy one individual song.

Way to go Pink Floyd for keeping your music as it should be.
 
Am I the only one who finds it somewhat amusing that the court is ordering a large company to pay in fines, for the crime of breaching a contract and illegally selling the music, a sum that is less than what said company would likely sue someone for if they were to pirate said music?

40,000 pounds isn't a lot for EMI.
 
I'm glad they won the case on the merits presented.

However I do hope they won't be so stupid as to force only whole album downloads.

You see it is like this the record companies have been known to screw over the artist they represent very often. This is a pretty clear case of just that, so anytime aany artist can get the intent of his contract enforced it is a good thing.

That is the legal side of things, on the otherhand I've never been a believer in this idea that albums have a message or that their creation is some sort of religious experience making the product untouchable. All artist, even Pink Floyd, need to realize that many of us simply don't care about their message or collected arts. We may identify with a few tracks and not much else.

Frankly I never got into music that deeply that I collected a lot of albums. ITunes has actually caused me to buy more music of late simply because I often by just one song. Try to force albums on me and I'm likely to regress to listening to the radio. I know this is likely causing spasms in some reading this missive right now, but I really don't want to see the industry move back to selling 80% crap albums.



Dave
 
knewsom said:
I buy LP's and then download the music via P2P. Perfectly legal, no DRM BS, cheap, and I have a copy of the music with the absolute best possible sound quality. Vinyl.

Rock on, Pink Floyd... these albums ARE meant to be listend to beginning to end, not all piecemeal like today's music. Artists who do this anymore are few and far between. Even back then, Floyd was not exactly "common". They are, always have been, and always will be, truly exceptional. Shine on, you crazy diamonds.

And to anyone who says they're outdated, is that why they have the second most valuable back catalogue EVER? They are one of the greatest bands in history, and their music has stood the test of time. In another 37 years, young seekers will still buy Dark Side of the moon, listen to it front to back with headphones on, and get goosebumps from a truly outstanding work of art. You wouldn't listen to a single movement from Beethoven's 9th, right? Or from Mozart's Requiem? This is no different.

To those who say it's about money - not likely. The band members are so insanely rich, they couldn't possibly want for much more. What they WANT is for their art to remain intact.
Click to expand...

+1, I started collecting new music on vinyl about a year ago. I had always had a bunch of old vinyl (60's, 70's, 80's), but it was more about collecting it. Now, whenever I hear new music, I look for it on Vinyl. Just bought a new high end TT as well. Awesome. There's nothing like listening to real vinyl.

I see this ruling as a positive thing for Artists rights. All too often the music labels get to do whatever they want with the artists work, and the artists get pennies.

This ruling isn't saying they can't release the music as singles, it's saying the label has to have Pink Floyds permission to do so. What's wrong with that? If it's bad for the music label, it's probably good for the consumer.

More and more the label is becoming a relic, and an unnecessary middle man.
 
09iMac=Fail said:
I still buy albums in their physical form of cd's. I like having the liner notes and I like seeing all of the info available about the recording session and other stuff. I know mp3's are popular, but I hate them. Not a fan of the degraded sound. I have an iPod, but I only use it when I travel.

Being a professional musician, I'm sure I'm out numbered in terms of preferring cd's. Does anybody have any stats on the number of tracks downloaded in mp3 form versus the number of tracks sold on cd format? Would be interesting to see.

You haven't convinced me that recording albums on a physical format is a dying industry.
Click to expand...

I agree completely -- while not a professional musician, I do write & play music. MP3's are terrible in sound quality -- FLAC is the way to go.

As for physical recordings being dying industry -- most likely not. Vinyl has become more popular as of late, a slight return to the good old days when music was good (1950-1979) (in terms of rock & roll, at least).
 
I'm kind of torn on this. I love Pink Floyd, they were one of my seminal bands, heavily influencing the way I listen to music. But sometimes I do just wanna listen to "Time" or "Echoes" by itself. I don't have a problem listening to "Money" by itself on the radio. I would have a problem listening to something like "Brain Damage" without "Eclipse" following right after, but I don't think anybody would play those two solo.

It's good to see so many Floyd fans on here. If this were Blink 182 that won the injunction, we'd all be negging this article to death.
 
apart from all i loved the way article speaks like Pink Floyd is still together. Like the band's lawyer or anything. I thought Pink Floyd parted ways back in '94.

I am a big big big big fan Pink Floyd and totally agree with them BTW. You shouldn't listen to Pink Floyd songs separately. I have about 300-400 Pink Floyd + David Gilmour + Roger Waters songs on my ipod and when i shuffle all songs i just pass the Pink FLoyd songs. Because for ex. when you listen to "Breath in the Air" you expect it to follow by "Speak to me" but in shuffle it does not, it just skips to for ex. Michael Jackson lol. Anyone with a little musical taste would agree.

Oh by the way yesterday was the Dark Side of the Moon's 37th birthday. That album will never get old. :)
 
Nebulance said:
I agree completely -- while not a professional musician, I do write & play music. MP3's are terrible in sound quality -- FLAC is the way to go.

As for physical recordings being dying industry -- most likely not. Vinyl has become more popular as of late, a slight return to the good old days when music was good (1950-1979) (in terms of rock & roll, at least).
Click to expand...

I'm not a professional musician either, but I do write and perform from time to time. I'll still call this out -- the difference between FLAC and a well-encoded 320kbps mp3 is nil. If you start to go 192kbps or below, yes, in a very few certain passages you can hear the mp3 distortion, but it's so terribly minor.

The difference between CD and vinyl is way more apparent than the difference between FLAC and mp3. None are terrible formats.

Saying the physical album isn't dead is just like saying the physical photo album isn't dead. They ARE dead, but there will always be a niche part of us that keep it barely chugging along. I like holding music in my hands sometime too, but out of an entire year I probably purchase 3 or 4 CDs, but I easily buy dozens/hundreds of mp3's.
 
GFLPraxis said:
Am I the only one who finds it somewhat amusing that the court is ordering a large company to pay in fines, for the crime of breaching a contract and illegally selling the music, a sum that is less than what said company would likely sue someone for if they were to pirate said music?

40,000 pounds isn't a lot for EMI.
Click to expand...

That's just the legal costs.

There are still outstanding disputes between Pink Floyd and EMI that need to be resolved before any damages are awarded.
 
wanting stuff for free...

Do you know how much money and effort it costs to make those albums? If the only music left is free, then it will be free crap! Speaking of crap, even at McDonalds you buy a box of fries, not a single fry. They sell you the whole box at a price that is profitable for them, and reasonable for you. Same with the album. If all music went singles only, that would certainly be detrimental to culture in general and music specifically. It'd be like if those commissioning Beethoven only wanted to pay for 3 minutes of their favorite parts of his music, forcing him to borrow money to buy a field and become a farmer instead....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back