In a recent speech given at a radio festival in the UK, The Who guitarist Pete Townshend has claimed that Apple bleeds artists “like a digital vampire” and that iTunes should do more to support artists.
However, he also added that iTunes “is a great piece of software”. Townshend also hit out at illegal downloading and piracy, stating:
“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.”
Townshend has got a point in a sense, but it is also true that iTunes itself is great platform to discover new artists on, and it is the main method thorough which music is distributed. Even though Apple does get a cut of each song sold, the majority does still go to the artist, and if they’re popular, they should still make a good amount of money regardless.