In his John Peel Lecture of 2011, Pete Townshend of The Who called iTunes a 'digital vampire', saying it was bleeding artists with its enormous 30% commission;
He then went on to give some tips as to how iTunes could create a better world for all " unearth new, good music through editorial guidance, give them financial support, nurture them, market them actively, publish them and distribute.
When I heard his lecture through a podcast, I couldn’t help but think how similar that is to travel specifically hotel distribution. Could the giant OTAs " Booking, Hotels.com, Expedia " be considered “digital vampires” as well? Charging enormous commissions for rooms sold.
Of course, their argument " and I am sure it’s iTunes’ as well " is their power of distribution. We help you reach more customers than you possibly could on your own and we spend a lot of money " billions " making sure that happens, and so the commissions you pay are worthwhile.
But I wonder if we could move the discussion beyond commissions and if there could be a bigger, more guided, more benevolent role these giant distributors could play in the industries they’ve aggregated and now dominate?
Townshend: “What creative people want is to know their music has been heard. They would prefer a response that was constructive than a positive or negative review. They would prefer expertise to opinion. They would like to know the public if they had a chance to hear the music, also had a chance to make up their own minds. They would prefer that in the long term the public were willing to pay for their music.”
Townshend’s argument is that music publishing should be like the music industry banking system from which active artists received these things " editorial guidance, financial support, creative nurture, manufacturing, publishing, marketing, distribution and payment of royalties (banking).
iTunes offers only the last two items as a guarantee, distribution and banking, with some marketing thrown in, he said.
For me, his most powerful point was on editorial guidance. He asked iTunes to “employ 20 A&R people from the dying record business”.
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