Pink Floyd sues EMI in dispute over royalties

The band wants to exercise creative control and are trying to force their record company EMI to sell only complete albums, as they are meant to be heard as "seamless" pieces of music, reported Daily Mail online.

EMI has allowed the band's songs to be downloaded individually following the emergence of MP3 players and the Apple iPod in recent years.But Pink Floyd, who are responsible for three of the biggest-selling albums of all time, 'Dark Side of the Moon', 'The Wall' and 'Wish You Were Here', are trying to put a stop to this in the High Court.

The band's lawyer Robert Howe argued that a contractual clause "expressly prohibited" the selling of tracks, either physically or online, "other than in their original configuration". Howe said EMI was arguing that the prohibition applies only to the physical product and doesn't apply online.

However EMI insisted that the agreement applied only to records and not to downloads.
When the agreement was drawn up in 1999, downloads did not exist. They were introduced in 2004.Pink Floyd signed with EMI in 1967 and have sold more than 200 million albums. They are outsold only by 'The Beatles', whose songs have not yet been made available through iTunes.