'Apple Is A Digital Vampire', Says The Who's Pete Townshend

Pete Townshend has laid into Apple, claiming that iTunes is depriving artists of royalties, and is "destroying copyright as we know it."

The Who guitarist was speaking at the first John Peel Lecture in Salford last night (Oct 31), where he described the US giants as a "digital vampire" that was damaging the growth of new music.

The BBC reports him as saying: "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.

"Apple should employ 20 talent scouts from the dying record business to give guidance to new acts and provide financial and marketing support to the best ones."

Laying into those who illegally downloaded music for free, Townshend said: "[They] may as well come and steal my son's bike while they're at it. 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."

Speaking of artist's dilemnas between art and commercialism, the iconic musician 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."

Townshend is currently finishing off his memoir, to be titled Who He?, which resulted in him being cautioned by police in 2003 after accessing child pornography, claiming that he was researching for the book.

Who He? will be published in 2012.

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