A slightly different look at the value of sonic branding…I recently applied for tickets to see Aerosmith at O2 this summer. The face price was quoted at £140 and the lead singer Steve Tyler is not even in the line up! This whole business of the price of tickets seems to be following me around. My manicurist(!) a big gig fan challenged me the other day with ‘You are in the Music Business, why do we have to pay so much to see the bands nowadays?’ From my perspective that is an easy one to answer – if we are not paying anything or anywhere near enough for downloads (and please don’t get me started on THAT whole debate), then the bands have to make money somewhere for their art and the easiest place is live performance and merchandising.
So this morning whilst reading the paper and eating my breakfast, I was more than interested to spot the headline “Pink Floyd in Victory to stop EMI selling singles”. It would seem that PF have successfully won the argument that when they originally made their albums, they had a contract with EMI that specified which tracks could be released as singles.
‘The dispute centred on a line in the contract stating, “There are no rights to sell any or all of the records as single records, other than with [Pink Floyd’s] permission”. EMI claimed that this applied only to physical copies of songs, but the band argued successfully that it also applied to songs sold online. The judge said the purpose of a clause in the contract was to “preserve the artistic integrity of the albums”‘.
The Times 12th March 2010
For what it’s worth, I have to say that I am fully in agreement with PF. The original albums were developed and released as a whole, with an idea being developed through out the 10-12 tracks that enabled fans to get an insight into where they were thinking, feeling or going as a band at the time of the release. Any singles would have been on the basis of the band having artistic control over what they wanted us to know about them or what they wanted to emotionally underline. Arbitrarily breaking an album is almost like taking a book of photographs, tearing out the pages and selling them separately, or editing an hour-long documentary and giving us 3 min sound bites. Yes, they make sense and can exist on their own, but they do not tell the whole story.
Pink Floyd are one of the superstar bands that have survived the test of time – a brand in their own right. They have sold more than 200 million albums during their career and have been one of the EMI’s most lucrative acts. How many other superstar artists from the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties will now be thinking the same thing: ‘Did I approve single tracks to be sold as single downloads?’ As I write this, I think I can hear the rustle of old contracts being hauled from storage and the sound of lawyers rubbing their hands. I actually have some sympathy for the record companies – we need to remember that they haven’t always been the bad guys and did a great job developing artists when we were all buying music. But it would seem they are now paying dearly for their short sightedness when Steve Jobs offered them ridiculously low royalty rates on each download as a way to take on piracy. At that moment in time they were holding all the cards i.e. all the content for a delivery platform that would have been obsolete before it began, no matter how beautiful the design. The repercussions of that decision are just beginning to reveal their hand. And as someone who avoids litigation at all costs, I have to say that I wish them luck. It’s about time someone stepped up to the plate and said NO, that’s enough.
Ruth Simmons, CEO
soundlounge
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