EMI must be taking lessons from NBC as one stupid move after another runs off viral video favorites.  OK Go rocketed up through the indie rock world in large measure due to the band's brilliant, lo-fi music videos, which have spread like crabs at prom on YouTube.  But EMI, in a misguided attempt to wring every penny out of the band's success, decided to block embedding on the YouTube videos--meaning the videos were unable to disseminate out through music and pop culture blogs, news sites, and personal blogs the way they did before the restriction.  Way to kill free advertisements morons!  The band saw a 90% drop in views when that restriction went into effect. As in, 100,000 views one day, 10,000 views the next.

OK Go isn't a band with huge hit radio singles.  Viral music videos are the band's way of making themselves buzzworthy, and it works: their homemade videos have achieved a level of popularity nobody could have predicted. So when the label makes their videos less popular, it means, in no uncertain terms, that less people out there know about OK Go, which means less people can buy albums and tickets for the hard-touring band's shows.

In a press release from the band, Kulash makes it clear that the choice, if not the actual act, to split was an easy one:

"We'd like to thank the people who have worked so hard on our behalf," said OK Go singer Damian Kulash, who will discuss the band's departure from the label on NPR's "All Things Considered" today. "And we'd like to thank our fans for making this choice an easy one for us."

The band, which despite a Grammy award has never been a huge seller, is seeing results: since the videos have become embeddable, digital album sales tripled and digital tracks sales have jumped more than sevenfold.  Buy OK Go's Latest Here.
 

Source: Fast Company