A story originally reported by Wayne Rosso on his blog, and which made its way onto this site in a post that I wrote via a third story on Tech Dirt, misstated the way in which EMI notified physical retailers that they would no longer be able to buy product directly from EMI, according to Stark Online. Stark Online refutes Rosso's claim that physical retailers were notified by phone, a claim I repeated, citing "sources within the music industry" who say that "EMI sent letters in February to a handful of small physical retailers," giving those retailers advance notice of the change and lists of third parties from which they could continue purchasing product from EMI.

The number of retailers affected amount to less than one percent of EMI's personal accounts, and Stark Online points to a commenter on Rosso's blog, Jason Hughes of the record store Sonic Boom, for evidence that the accounts closed were those "doing minimal orders." Hughes' account conflicts with those of retailers that Rosso spoke with--who go unnamed, as do the sources Stark Online relied on--and described as "so upset that they vow to never buy any EMI catalog again--or any new artist releases either."

For Stark Online, this is "a fairly small thing" and Rosso's pasting of EMI was unwarranted, as presumably would be the jabs I took at EMI. As they speculate, it could be "a wise business decision to spend more money and man/woman power on digital distribution." It may be the first step in implementing the vision of Elio Leoni-Sceti, the CEO of EMI Music, to "complement our artists' creativity with our skills in innovation" and find a business model to capitalize on the shift to digital consumption of music. The plan is to "listen to...consumers," who don't appear to want physical CDs with lovingly crafted liner notes.

So EMI has closed some physical accounts, and EMI sent letters to those retailers in advance of the change and pointing them to third parties where they could continue to purchase EMI product. I look forward to seeing what innovations EMI comes up with to deliver artists' creativity to me, because so far making money on digital music has been an unsolvable riddle.