EMI's latest stroke of genius has been to sue Hi5, a social networking site. Ever heard of it? Me neither. That's because the website is virtually unknown in Europe and North America, where the market is dominated by other little sites called Facebook and MySpace. Hi5 is most popular in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, and members can upload homemade videos to the site to share with other users. EMI is alleging that the site is engaging in copyright infringement by hosting videos containing music from the label's artists. Um. Hey. Hey, EMI. There's this site that kind of only does this video sharing thing... you might want to check it out... it's called um, YouTu-- oh, never mind.
There's also the matter of Radiohead: The Best Of, with which I personally take umbrage because ending a phrase with a preposition just ain't right. Oh yeah, and there's also the awkward matter of Radiohead declining to renew their contract with EMI and signing with XL (for the physical release). "Awkward" doesn't really seem to be in EMI's company manual, in that it seems to be totally fine with shadily releasing albums and singles despite artists' wishes.
Thom Yorke added his own scathing commentary, saying:
The packaging is awful. There are three really bad photos. They're not going to make any money from it because they'll spend so much on TV advertising. Another thing is that greatest hits don't sell in America. I don't understand why they're doing it. And you know what it's done? It's ensured that we are never, ever, ever re-signing to EMI while there's a Guy Hands involvement. Who knows what could happen in the future. We could say, ‘EMI is great, we miss it and we could go back there.’ But this has ensured we'll never re-sign while he's involved
For Thom Yorke to even suggest the possibility of returning to EMI seems unbelievably generous in the first place, but guess what? Any chance for the label to soon regain one of its most profitable artists was fucked up good and proper with a release of Radiohead's "greatest hits." Another goose egg for EMI. Oh, look... I have a copy of the company manual after all: "Consistency is key."
