Radiohead Quit EMI Over Back Catalogue

 

Radiohead walked away from a new deal with EMI due to a dispute over “moral rights” to the band’s back catalogue, according to a newspaper report today.

Radiohead co-manager Bryce Edge told The Times that talks over renewing the band’s contract with the major label couldn’t advance because EMI owner Guy Hands “refused to discuss the catalogue in a meaningful way”.

“We sold 25m records and we have the moral rights over those six albums,” Edge explains. “We wanted a say in how they are exploited in the future. We were not seeking a big advance payment, or a guaranteed marketing spend as discussions never got that far.”

However, an EMI spokesman quoted in the Times says, “Radiohead were demanding an extraordinary amount of money and we did not believe that our other artists should have to subsidise their gains.”

Edge also says in the interview that he believes more big names are set to leave EMI.

Radiohead, who eventually signed to XL in the UK for the physical release of the seventh album In Rainbows, have previously said that they left EMI because Hands "doesn't understand the music industry".

 Thom Yorke was reported recently saying that the recent and controversial 'honesty box' release of 'In Rainbows'  "made more money... [than digital income from] all the other Radiohead albums put together"

Source; Musicweek 

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