Pete Townsend, giving a speech in Manchester at the inaugural John Peel Lecture , went after ITunes. he asked: "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, for its enormous commission?"
I don't get that at all. I have no great love for ITunes or Jobs for that matter (I was a dissenting voice in the making a Saint of Jobs after his recent death) , but ITunes is not a record company, they are a distribution company.
Townsend's suggestion is like asking a newspaper distributor to help in print sales. It is completely nonsensical. How are they digital vampires any way? By making commission on sales? All third parties make commission on sales, otherwise why would they do it to start with?
The truth is, as Larry Schneiderman noted the other day, rock performers have to lower their expectations. Schndeiderman noted that in the 1970s and 1980s rock star greed got completely out of control, they lost touch with their audience and it became all about money. Now, they have to lower their expectations and accept that record sales won't fuel their income the way it used to, and they need to make their money on concert tickets and merchandising.
Back to Townsend, who, head firmly in the sand, had this to say about file sharing: "The internet is destroying copyright as know it. The word 'sharing' surely means giving away something you have earned, or made, or paid for? 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.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.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."
Pete's (and Paul McGuinness) problem is that blaming the internet for file sharing is stupid (and anway, we are way beyond that now). If the technology is there it will be used: adapt or die. And maybe sell one of your mansions.