∞ Pete Townshend calls iTunes a 'digital vampire'

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AP:

The Who’s Pete Townshend on Monday branded Apple Inc.’s iTunes a “digital vampire” that profits from music without supporting the artists who create it.

Townshend said that faced with the Internet’s demolition of established copyright protections, iTunes should offer some of the services to artists that record labels and music publishers used to provide.

Come on Pete. Apple is giving bands the chance to sell their music. Many of these artists wouldn’t have that chance without iTunes. Apple isn’t responsible for the demolition of copyrights, they are the company that is helping people to legally purchase music. iTunes is helping artists.


  • http://twitter.com/pberry Patrick Berry

    The Who are almost assuredly making a lot more money from iTunes and Amazon MP3 than from all the streaming outfits.

  • His Shadow

    How exactly did Apple become wholly responsible for the miserably broken music industry?

  • Guest

    Apple is not a producer or publisher. They are a reseller, plain and simple. Does Pete also wish Walmart provides services?

  • Ben Collins

    I’d have a little more sympathy for The Who if “Endless Wire” wasn’t so incredibly mediocre.

  • Anonymous

    I’m a huge Who / Townshend fan, but Pete’s being ridiculous here; hopefully somebody will talk some sense into him.

  • Frank

    It pique’s my interest to know what makes well-known artists like Townsend come out of left field with such pearls of jism (not a typo)

  • Anonymous

    Someone should educate Mr Townsend. iTunes soldiered on with DRM crippled songs long after such “protections” were cast off by the record industry he seems to revere so much started cutting deals with iTunes competitors that didn’t require it. 

    • Anonymous

      don’t forget that they did it because the labels made them. Apple was only able to get the labels to drop the whole DRM thing because the labels wanted to change up the pricing, particularly to charge more and so Apple had the pull to say they would only agree to the pricing if the labels dropped DRM

  • belton braces

    I don’t think that with Mr Townsend’s track record on what he used the internet for, he is speaking from a moral high ground. 

    And besides, he can always give the money back out of protest.

    • Anonymous

      if you’re talking about the pedophile stuff, a little research would tell you that it was complete and total BS.  Criticize Townshend (not Townsend) for the stupidity of what he said this time, but don’t perpetuate character assassination. 

      • belton braces

        I didn’t accuse him of what he was media-trashed to be, just what he used the internet for. He was not prosecuted on grounds of admittance of using his credit card to access the sites. And then he was placed on the sex offenders list for 5 years.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Townshend#Operation_Ore_investigation_and_police_caution

        I can’t quite find the book he was meant to have been researching for, but perhaps your more in-depth research could help on that one.

        And sorry about the spelling (although I notice I’m not alone here on that one so you might want to call others on it).

  • http://mangochut.net/ mangochutney

    Translation:

    “People don’t buy my music anymore and it surely can’t be my fault.
    As I can’t say anything bad about my record company, because they will screw me over even harder during the next contract negotiations, I’m going to talk about something I have no clue of, because I need to blame someone.”

    • Anonymous

      Dude, I loved your comment! ;)

      • http://mangochut.net/ mangochutney

        Thank you, I’m glad you liked it :)

  • Anonymous

    I’m willing to give the issue the benefit of a more detailed hearing. It’s easy to simply say that Pete Townshend is a successful musician so it hasn’t hurt him any, but then again we’re biased, nor are we (generally, and I’m of course guessing) musicians with a deep knowledge of the music industry.

    It does appear that the significance of labels is melting away, so I’d like to know more fully what benefits the labels provide artists? Some are easy to digest: with digital delivery there is less reliance on disk manufacturing and distribution. And with outlets like iTunes there is less reliance on the label for marketing. But are there babies being thrown out with the bathwater? I’d really like to know in specific, not in general, before I just broadly judge.

    On the other hand, if no one is going to get specific publicly, then I can only make broad judgments.

    Sorry if this post seems a little unfocused: I lost a lot of blood hanging out with iTunes last night.

    • Guest

      You can’t sell your music on iTunes without going through a label. iTunes is not the label. Pete’s label has been good to him, but how many musicians were absolutely screwed over by their label. Anything that puts less power in the hands of middle men is a good thing, in my opinion.

      That’s not to say labels don’t have their place. But they need to realize they can easily be replaced so/they need to be honest and fair when dealing with musicians. i.e. they need to put faith in the artists they invest in, not lock them down so tight that they control how and what the musicians produce and give them a pittance in return.

      • Anonymous

        I did not realize that Apple requires that you have a label for an artist to be listed. That would seem to fly in the face of what Mr. Townshend is suggesting, that iTunes strips an artist of the benefits of a label. Unless what he means is that in this iTunes world that labels are no longer offering things they used to offer, perhaps because they make less profit now than in years past?

        It would stand to reason that by being a catalyst to shrinking operating margins for the record labels, iTunes is starving the smaller artists because the labels would squeeze them first before squeezing the big-bucks acts.

        What would seem to be the missing piece is the cutting out of the labels as a requirement for iTunes. THAT would be the big disruption that would level the playing field somewhat. Record companies can still offer valuable benefits to artists, but access to the minimum level of exposure offered by iTunes wouldn’t be one of them. If the record labels can cast a wider net to entice more artists (as more are exposed via iTunes) and provide less over-the-top services, then perhaps that is the rejiggering of their profit model to everyone’s benefit (everyone’s, that is, except for the artists currently getting the royal treatment).

      • Anonymous

        Yes you can sell on iTunes without having a label. or even using services like tune core. http://www.apple.com/itunes/content-providers/music-faq.html

        Labels were great in the days before the internet when it was a bear to market etc. But now it’s a breeze to set up a twitter, a Facebook etc. to contact venues via email. to create and upload your own music videos to youtube. Labels aren’t really needed anymore