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Pink Floyd’s post-”Dark Side of the Moon” catalog has been removed from digital retail sites such as iTunes and Amazon.com following the lapse of record label EMI’s contract with the band June 30.

EMI continues to sell CD copies that it already has in stock, but won’t be able to manufacture new copies of post-”Dark Side” albums until, and if, it signs a new contract with the band.

Floyd’s albums following 1973’s “Dark Side of the Moon” were originally issued by Columbia. EMI acquired the rights to them in 2000. Pre-”Dark Side” albums are unaffected and still available as hardcopies and digital downloads from EMI.

This latest development is unrelated to a London High Court ruling that sided with the band, which argued EMI didn’t have the right to sell its tracks online individually, a practice known as “unbundling.”

Reuters reports the band’s management has been shopping its back catalog around to labels for a new licensing deal for 18 months, but the high asking price has turned away a number of labels.

Floyd is one of the biggest selling recording acts of all time. Since 1991, the band’s albums have sold 36.2 million copies in the United States, including 654,000 in 2009 and nearly 311,000 in 2010.

As an example of how digital sales have contributed to Floyd’s volume, consider this: According to Reuters, in the two months leading up to the expiration of EMI’s contract, fans were buying about 1,000 digital copies of “The Wall” a week. That number is now practically zero.

Thanks to everyone who completed our listener survey last week. Understanding who listens to “Floydian Slip” is key to marketing the show to advertisers and growing our network.

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To further entice you, we’ve beefed up our monthly drawing: Take our survey and be entered into a drawing at the end of each month to win a Floyd CD, in addition to a “Floydian Slip” flash-drive. Winners will have a half-dozen titles to choose from.

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“Floydian Slip” was written up in the latest issue of the Champlain Business Journal, published in Rutland, Vt., and distributed to Vermont’s northwestern counties.

The monthly paper’s circulation is 14,900, with more than 45,000 readers after factoring in pass-along readership.

Thanks to writer Mike Reilly for the “ink.”

Read the article online.

EMI’s troubles got a little worse with news Paul McCartney will move his back catalog to a different label.

EMI is Pink Floyd’s long-time label. The financially-troubled company suffered a setback last month when a court ruled in the band’s favor regarding online sales of individual Floyd tracks (”Court sides with Floyd over online sales“).

McCartney is moving to Concord Music Group, an independent label in California, which has released his last couple albums.

EMI has also seen The Rolling Stones leave, with the band’s back catalog; and Radiohead.

Brad Smith is enjoying his 15 minutes of fame within two disparate groups of fanatics: retro video game fans and Pink Floyd connoisseurs.

He’s recreated Floyd’s 1973 “Dark Side of the Moon” album — with surprising accuracy — using nothing but ’80s-era video game system beeps and bloops.

Smith, a 27-year-old game programmer from Ontario, Canada, tells us he spent about 190 hours working on his creation, which he’s named “Moon8,” for a friend’s birthday.

“I thought I’d put this together, partly as a joke, and play it at the party,” he says. “I say it was partly as a joke, but I really do mean only partly. I spend a lot of time listening to old game soundtracks, and I do find them fully aesthetically satisfying.

“I’ve always been interested in transcription/arrangement, taking a piece of music from one instrument/ensemble to another. I also like the challenge of making something big fit small space.

“‘Dark Side of the Moon’ as an album has been around me all my life, and it’s one I’ve listened to with friends again and again.”

Smith used Famitracker, an application that takes user input and feeds it to an emulation of the Nintendo Entertainment System sound software.

The result sounds something like … well, it’s almost like a cross between … Well, listen for yourself: Download the entire work for free.

A peek at the Pink Floyd-themed “Cold Case” episode airing on CBS-TV this Sunday night.

The BBC reports the English High Court has decided in favor of Pink Floyd in a dispute the band has been engaged in with its long-time record label EMI.

At issue is whether the label has the right to sell Floyd’s tracks individually online. The ruling could remove Floyd’s catalog from the iTunes Music Store and the like.

The band had maintained its contract prohibits EMI from selling its tracks piecemeal without band permission, and this contract, agreed upon before the advent of MP3, included online sales.

EMI disagreed, saying the word “record” in the contract meant a physical thing that didn’t apply to digital files sold online.

The court today sided with the band, which wasn’t present to hear the ruling, saying the contract guarantees to preserve the “artistic integrity” of the band’s albums, which prevented so-called “unbundled” sales of individual tracks without the Floyd’s say-so.

EMI has been ordered to pay $60,000, but, in a statement, said, “Today’s judgment does not require EMI to cease making Pink Floyd’s catalogue available as single track downloads, and EMI continues to sell Pink Floyd’s music digitally and in other formats.”

This latest court ruling is part of a much larger long-running dispute between the band and label over approximately $15 million in allegedly unpaid royalties.

News agency Reuters reports that Pink Floyd today took legal action against its long-time record label EMI. The point of contention is EMI’s online sales of individual Floyd tracks and royalty calculations of the same.

Floyd attorney Robert Howe told London’s High Court the band has contractual protection against EMI’s selling of its tracks piecemeal, a practice known as “unbundling.”

According to Howe, EMI believes that agreement is limited to “physical product and doesn’t apply online.”

Floyd’s back catalog is the second most popular in the world, next to The Beatles’.

As we reported previously, the March 21 episode of CBS-TV’s “Cold Case” will feature several songs by Pink Floyd.

Today, Capitol/EMI, the band’s label, released more details about the broadcast.

In the episode, titled “Flashover,” the missing Nick Vera (Jeremy Ratchford) is concerned team members realize he’s finally hit rock bottom and hopes a new twist to a 2006 arson case, which Vera was secretly obsessing about in recent weeks, might supply quick leads to his whereabouts.

Glenn Morshower (”24″) plays a fire marshal who partnered with Vera on the arson/homicide case in 2006, and Patrick Gallagher (”Glee”) portrays a bartender at a bar where Vera’s recently become a regular.

The episode was written by Greg Plageman, one of the series’ executive producers, and was directed by Jeannot Szwarc.

“Pink Floyd’s music is so sonically and texturally rich it demands your attention, and nothing about this episode is lean-back television,” said Plageman. “The Floyd tracks we chose seem to perfectly complement the slide of Detective Nick Vera into a personal abyss.

“We also love that one of their most famous album covers, ‘Wish You Were Here’ — of two men on fire shaking hands (Actually only one is on fire -fs) — was shot right here on the Warner Bros. Lot 35 years ago, right next to our actual ‘Cold Case’ soundstages.

“So, we thought that it would be great symmetry to play the title track over the final montage.”

Past music-themed episodes of “Cold Case” have featured the music of Ray Charles, John Lennon, Frank Sinatra, Nirvana, Johnny Cash, John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, Tim McGraw, U2, Bob Dylan, Santana, Bob Seger, The Doors and Pearl Jam.