EMI Records

EMI Records Ltd, was a British record label. It was founded by the EMI company in 1972 as its flagship label and launched in January 1973 as the successor to its Columbia and Parlophone labels. The EMI label was launched worldwide.

History

An E.M.I. Records Ltd. legal entity was created in 1957 as the record manufacturing and distribution arm of EMI in the UK. It oversaw EMI's various labels companies including The Gramophone Co. Ltd., Columbia Graphophone Company Ltd. and Parlophone Record Co. Ltd. The global success that EMI enjoyed in the 1960s exposed the fact that the company had the rights to only some of its trademarks in some parts of the world, most notably His Master's Voice and Columbia, with RCA Victor Records and the American Columbia Records owning the rights to these trademarks in North America. Complicating matters was the formation by American Columbia of its own operations in the UK by purchasing Oriole Records and changing its name to that of its then parent company CBS (the legal trademark designation bearing the full name of the parent company, "Trade Mark of Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc."), and as CBS Records International becoming highly successful, a serious rival to EMI, in the UK.