Pete Townshend condemns Apple as 'digital vampire'

The mind boggles...

You've really got to wonder where radio and MTV fits into Pete's view of things here.

There are plenty of bands who's works I've enjoyed for free and quite legally too.

This includes The Who oddly enough.

...talking 'bout my generation and whatnot.

then again

if you hadn't stuffed so much fairy dust up you hooter you might have even more money than you do now.

Rampant self publicist talks bollocks

Nobody care about Pete Townshend any more. I doubt that most of da yoof even know who he is. He's been an irrelevance since the sixties. So, had he not invoked the spectre of Apple, this speech would have been ignored. Let's not give him the oxygen he's seeking. He's just trolling.

Free computers?

WTF? How will that help?

Why not just give them the advise in the first place on "guiding them through the rocky shoals of marketing, copyright, and distribution"?

Afterall, a PC is what - £300? And it's very likely they already have one?

I'd stay off the charlie and try and keep up, Pete...mate.

I can see it now...

Somewhere, in Apple PR department:

Drone 1: "Pete Townsend? Do we give a shit?"

Drone 2: <looks up itunes sales for PT, and Bio info on Wikipedia> "No. Plus he slagged off the holy one"

Drone 1: "Fair enough, f* him then - carry on as normal"

Well is he a man of conviction, isn't he?

Betting term

"trifecta"? Do you mean "triptych" perchance?

But iTunes is just a big record shop.

Whilst it would be nice it's not strictly their job to nurture talent. Thats what record companies are supposed to do. Well at least they used to. They're the ones who would traditionally send out the ANR men. I guess that roll has now been taken over by Simon Cowell.

And whilst on the subject of record shops, both iTunes and Amazon have a vast selections of obscure music which was never available from your local high street store. At least musicians now have a global outlet where they can sell their work. On iTunes you can even get Thy Gospel by Stian Westerhus for christ sakes.

I found the BBC article on this far more balanced and helpful (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15528101), some of Pete's comments are below

Quote: "The word 'sharing' surely means giving away something you have earned, or made, or paid for?" he said.

Quote: "Is there really any good reason why, just because iTunes exists in the wild west internet land of Facebook and Twitter, it can't provide some aspect of these services to the artists whose work it bleeds like a digital vampire, like a digital Northern Rock, for its enormous commission?" he asked.

Quote: The guitarist also said that people who downloaded his music without paying for it "may as well come and steal my son's bike while they're at it".

Quote: If someone "pretends that something I have created should be available to them free... I wonder what has gone wrong with human morality and social justice", he said.

Quote: But he also told listeners: "It's tricky to argue for the innate value of copyright from a position of good fortune, as I do. I've done all right."

Quote: And he added: "A creative person would prefer their music to be stolen and enjoyed than ignored. This is the dilemma for every creative soul: he or she would prefer to starve and be heard than to eat well and be ignored."

He seems to realise that he's done okay from his music, and that he realises that people will question his stand considering he's done okay from it - but he does make a point. If you create something, then you should have the right to sell that if you want to (or offer it free, if you want to). "File sharing" costs artists money, with most people who do it, probably not actually paying for their original copy of the music, rather getting it from someone else and then sharing it on. And Apple/iTunes takes a large (30%) cut of the sales, without doing anything to help up-coming artists. He pointed out that John Peel did lots to introduce new artists to listeners.

Music is for sharing

I used to share Who songs in the playground using my voice. There were no corporate lawyers spying on that activity then trying to stop me. When I learned to use a guitar and mike I used to share songs that way with less cringeworthy results. I wasn't paid for sharing music then either, and didn't have to pay for the privilege.

I really don't mind artists getting a cut from commercial activity which surrounds copying - radio, public broadcast, creating ambience in a restaurant, and selling premium net connections etc based upon how many songs and films can be downloaded.

But stay out of our private lives. Lawyers claiming to represent artists don't have a right to steam open our private mail if it contains a DVD or CD . By any reasonable standards they don't have a right to spy on Internet connections and how these are used for the same reasons. Privacy is a human right while copyright isn't. So go after the people making money off it by all means, but leave the rest of us alone.

Fixed it for you Pete...

"It would be better if the music industry stopped treating music like food," i.e stop turning it into shit.

Townshend makes some good valid points, the Cupertinian approach to music is a slash and burn approach, they sell some music, grab what they can, move on to new green fields and leave a wasteland behind them, but that’s standard practice for the Slymon Cowell version of the music industry.

Even Bono has said there may never be another U2 because the copyright mafiaa will not make the sort of investment in a band, why invest in a project that is going to payback over 20+ years when you can take an X-factor “winner” who was never a giging musician, hype the shit out of them, make a massive profit out of them for a year and then psudo-drop them i.e. continue to hold their contact but don’t promote them

The so-called x-factor winners, get a recording contract work 1million GBP, in effect what they get is a bill for 1million GBP, recoverable from their share of the record sales.

Townshend has a valid point, the suppliers of the music industry should be encouraging and nurturing new talent for long careers and sustained income, and stop treating them as a once off cash crop.

And then he goes and ruins it by saying something stupid (do you see what I’ve done there?) by saying that we should pay each time we listen to some music!!!!!!!!! Get a grip dickhead, I’ve paid for the CD* I’ll play it as often as I want on whatever media I have. If Townshend wants to be paid each time I want to listen to the Who he better be prepared to come and gig in my house….

"It would be better if music lovers treated music like food," he added, "and paid for every helping, rather than only when it suited them."

So, every time I put my The Who CD into my CD player I would also have to swipe my debit card through it as well?

Purely in the interests of research...

Maybe the people who download music illegally are doing it for "research", eh Pete?

music vs apps : same thing shirley ???

I struggle to see the difference. If anything the 'app store' has brought out the ridiculous way that music is funded and sold.

If as a talented software artiste (cough.. I'm not.. but IF) I create a masterpiece I don't 'sign up' with EA anymore - I flog it on an app store. If its good it sells, it gets reviews, it gets rated, it sells more.

Why the hell do musicians think they are somehow above the commercial supply and demand system that , for the rest of us, seems to work pretty well ?

Oh we need to EAs of the world sure - Battefield 3 took years to develop with 100s of people... a song doesn't. sorry to rain on the artiste's parade, but the successful ones have had their mental funding system for too long.

The bad ones ? Well they'll still struggle to earn a living. As they should. If I was a crap programmer I wouldn't expect to be subsidised either.

What do 'labels' do these days ? Fuck all. You'd be mental to sign with one unless they offer similar terms to an app store (say +5% for marketing).

Music industry

What people are forgetting here is an increasing number of people selling music on iTunes are independant artists, so the musician gets 70% of the cut and Apple gets 30%. There is no record company taking the lion's share in these cases.

Small artists are using things like iTunes and Amazon because at the moment their only alternative, is a large record company who will give them the crappest contract known to humanity, aka a "360 deal", which means they will loan the musician 20k or so to make a record and promote it. They will then take 95% of all sales, touring and merch profit (hense 360 as they take a cut from everything) and expect the musician to pay back the 20k from the 5% they get. They have to sell hundreds of thousands of records to break even and many small artists make a significant loss on their record sales. This is assuming that they even get a deal in the first place because, unlike in the past, large record companies are refusing to take chances on anything.

As for promotion, MTV no longer play music videos hense why they got moved from Music to Entertainment on Sky. Radio stations only play approved "safe" music because they are all owned by either Clear channel in the states or Capital group here so small artists aren't getting their break on radio. Independant record shops are rapidly ceasing to exist as DJs are all using MP3s and Ableton/VDJ/Mixxx/etc now so you can't get them to stock your promos. Places like iTunes, Amazon and the internet in general are pretty much becoming the only place left for small artists to get well known. In this respect iTunes are probably doing more to help the music industry than anything and this is coming from someone that generally doesn't buy Apple's products.

I stole his son's bike...

But since I made a copy of it, he'll never know nor be without it nor feel any loss from it.

But I have a nifty bike I would have never bought in the first place and tell all my friends about what an awesome brand it is...and eventually I might just go out and buy myself one just to have one that's been professionally built instead of being a copy of the original.

Jackass.

@QuinnDexter

You ask "How DOES that blind deaf mute kid play pinball?"

Because he wasn't any of the three, he was in a ?funk? caused by his wicked uncle Ernie - the famous kiddie fiddler...

Do try to keep up.

Sounds like he wants Apple to act as a record label? The activities Pete is suggesting are admirable but they are what record labels do as they have the most to gain from artists. Apple is a retailer of music as is Amazon and HMV.

What sort of bike?

Asking for a friend of course.