[HN Gopher] Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this ...
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Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean for the
musicians?
Author : davidgerard
Score : 115 points
Date : 2023-09-28 20:04 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (rocknerd.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (rocknerd.co.uk)
| Kye wrote:
| I don't know who needs to hear this, but you can download all the
| music you uploaded by starting a draft of a Bandcamp subscription
| service (after buying something to create an account and profile
| if you don't have one). All your albums will be added to your
| personal collection. I suggest FLAC.
|
| edit:
|
| Magic trick: open one (1) album. Change it to FLAC. Download.
|
| Now FLAC is default for the others you open.
| slg wrote:
| Epic bought Bandcamp less than 2 years ago. No one had any idea
| why at the time and now they are already selling it, almost
| certainly at a loss. This is the type of situation that would
| cause senior leadership heads to roll if there was any justice in
| the world, instead 16% of employees get laid off.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Turns out that growth based on an assumption that your model of
| "slot machines for children" is not infinitely exponential and
| cannot subsidise "free games on PCs to compete with Steam while
| trying to dictate to Apple how they build their products".
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Epic stopped selling lootboxes a couple years before grabbing
| bandcamp.
| [deleted]
| ye-olde-sysrq wrote:
| I've posted something to this effect before but I'll post it
| again. I'm terrified someone is going to enshittify bandcamp.
|
| I used to be a huge what fan, primarily for discovery. Never
| would've known I liked atmospheric black metal if not for them.
|
| When they closed, I didn't really have enough "in" in the scene
| to know where other refugees went, so I just shopped around for
| anywhere else that would let me get "real" (in the what sense of
| real - decent encodes from raw source material that have the full
| spectrum and aren't just FLAC encodes of "high quality" mp3's). I
| don't pretend to be able to hear the difference, but I like it
| for archival purposes. I have plexamp transcode the audio anyway
| when I'm on mobile.
|
| Turns out most people don't give a shit so most places don't
| offer flacs. Except bandcamp. Plus they pay artists fairly, which
| ended up being as important to me as the flacs as I came to
| support indie bands for whom selling on bandcamp was a huge lift.
| I like seeing CDs literally come from residential addresses in
| Sweden. I like supporting the random 1 dude making awesome metal
| out of his basement.
| moab wrote:
| Check out https://rateyourmusic.com/ which is good for
| discovery, e.g., https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/atmospheric-
| black-metal/ and the all-time lists:
| https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time/g:atmosp...
|
| Users also make wonderful charts on this website. also, hello
| from a fellow what refugee!
| brianstorms wrote:
| I also worry about enshittification of Bandcamp. And I'm an
| artist with music on the site. I was very nervous about the
| Epic deal when it happened (figured it was a way to get the
| founders and the A-round VCs some money in a cash-out after an
| incredibly long period of time, similar to what happened to
| Meetup).
|
| But now? Songtradr smells like an investment bank, one that
| looks at music as "content" or "IP" and wants to license the
| hell out of it -- and ultimately, own as much of the rights as
| possible.
|
| They do not strike me as aligned with artist interests, or with
| the spirit of Bandcamp, which, admittedly, at this late date is
| mostly a fantasy.
|
| Bandcamp represents the last, best refuge for artists in a
| world where most companies offer you "exposure," what else
| would you want, stop whining about being paid, etc. Bandcamp
| means payment. Which means livelihoods.
|
| I don't trust SongTraitor.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Well, damn. I was just thinking that it had been over a year
| since Epic had purchased Bandcamp and hadn't fucked it up yet.
|
| Time to reset the panic clock!
| mgkimsal wrote:
| > Songtradr is talking up using its licensing prowess to give
| opportunities to Bandcamp artists -- including licensing on Epic
| games.
|
| So... Epic sells bandcamp, a profitable business unit, to another
| entity which will then sell bandcamp assets back to ... Epic. ??
| And Epic's competitors. Why would Epic go out of its way to
| support a company that is supporting its competitors?
| davidgerard wrote:
| (author here) I'm assuming because sync rights are complicated,
| and Epic didn't quite realise how complicated. But Songtradr
| literally does rights as its main business. So this would work
| like Epic outsourcing it to a specialist, with an extra step.
|
| I'm still boggling that Epic thought tiny independent record
| labels would be good for pressuring the union to stop. Tiny
| labels these days tend to be set up by musicians who work too
| hard and who likely have close personal knowledge of working
| shitty jobs. Epic really had NO IDEA.
| codetrotter wrote:
| If they had plans to use Bandcamp for Epic assets, did it work?
| If not then I guess that's a good reason to sell it to someone
| else.
| cageface wrote:
| Now more than ever I think it's important to support small,
| independent music sellers. I buy a lot from Bleep and Boomkat but
| there are a lot of other good options too.
| thirteenfingers wrote:
| And I literally _just_ dropped my album this afternoon. I don 't
| know whether I should be worried now.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Do you have a link to the album?
| Modified3019 wrote:
| Make sure to archive your bandcamp collection, which you can do
| with the following script: https://github.com/easlice/bandcamp-
| downloader Other downloaders only target the openly available mp3
| files.
|
| I have a straightforward guide on how to get up and running on
| windows here: https://github.com/easlice/bandcamp-
| downloader/issues/21
|
| You should always archive your collection anyways. One negative
| thing about bandcamp is that artists/labels/bandcamp can remove
| anything at anytime for any reason, so things you paid for can
| straight up disappear. This was very disappointing to discover.
| Note that sometimes things are set as hidden, rather than
| outright removed. This info may be outdated, as the relevant
| support page seems to gave changed from the last time I looked at
| it.
|
| Because of their no DRM policy and full on downloads, not just
| streaming, Bandcamp has basically become the only place I'll buy
| music outside of CDs.
|
| I'm happy enough to hand artists money if it's easy and I can
| archive a lossless copy, but if they start fucking around with
| things, I'll go right back to doing what I was before. That said,
| if they fix the outright removal of paid things problem, and
| start treating "artist" as first class instead of "label" in
| searches and links, I'll be singing their praises.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > Because of their no DRM policy and full on downloads, not
| just streaming, Bandcamp has basically become the only place
| I'll buy music outside of CDs.
|
| Just so you know, Apple and Amazon also offer DRM free music
| downloads. Obviously, you have to actually buy the individual
| song or album, not a streaming plan.
|
| In Apple's case you do need to install iTunes to get your DRM-
| free file (on Windows, I'm not sure what the status is on Mac
| nowadays), which kind of sucks.
| eindiran wrote:
| I have also purchased music on Amazon and let's not pretend
| its "full on downloads", Amazon has V0 MP3 only iirc and
| Bandcamp offers ever format under the sun including FLAC and
| ALAC.
|
| Don't know about Apple because iTunes doesn't have Linux
| support and the whole setup of downloading an app in order to
| download a file strikes me as a bit gross.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| It's true Amazon doesn't offer lossless audio downloads,
| but they're very good quality, and DRM-Free.
|
| iTunes downloads are AAC, 250+ kb/s (remember this is a
| more efficient codec).
|
| I'm probably opening a can of worms here, but I'm really
| quite skeptical that more than one in a million people
| could tell the difference between iTunes and lossless in a
| blind test. Maybe drop that to one in a thousand for Amazon
| vs Lossless. (I really do wish Amazon offered AAC
| downloads.)
| pdntspa wrote:
| I'm a DJ on mid-range monitoring hardware and I can
| definitely hear the difference with apple's encodes vs
| FLAC, at least on their older encodes. I am not 100% sure
| its the compression protocol (could be differences in
| mastering since streaming has different requirements) but
| the attentuation on bass and watery-sounding cymbals
| stick out like a sore thumb in the right listening
| environment
|
| I only buy music on itunes as a last resort, so I don't
| have a huge sample size.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > It's true Amazon doesn't offer lossless audio
| downloads, but they're very good quality, and DRM-Free
|
| They are DRM-free, but I wouldn't characterize the MP3s
| as "very good quality". They're only OK. It was the
| quality of their encodings that got me to stop buying
| music downloads from Amazon.
| Kye wrote:
| Lossless is mainly for mixing/remixing, not listening.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I disagree. As a listener, the lossy encodings I've heard
| are fairly annoying, especially in the higher
| frequencies.
|
| I haven't heard every lossy encoding, of course, and
| there may be an actually good one that escaped my
| attention.
| [deleted]
| djxfade wrote:
| This scares me. I have a few tracks that I sell through Bandcamp.
| I hope they don't mess it up.
| ricoche wrote:
| I don't think Bandcamp will be the same again. (I don't mean this
| in a positive way)
| manicennui wrote:
| Ugh. I wasn't happy that Epic owned it, but they didn't seem to
| be doing anything to harm it yet. I don't know much about
| Songtradr, but I don't trust a company that is focused on
| licensing and not creation.
| izzydata wrote:
| You don't trust a company that is trusted by Heineken?
|
| But for real. What kind of company needs to list a bunch of
| random companies and say they are "trusted by" them. If you
| need to tell me how trusted you are then I really don't trust
| you.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Indeed. As a wise man once told me... never trust anyone who
| says "trust me".
| Hoasi wrote:
| Good things don't last.
| sparrish wrote:
| Bandcamp employees unionized and Epic couldn't get rid of it fast
| enough. Can't let that cancer spread to the game devs, oh no!
| meowtimemania wrote:
| did they unionize while at epic?
| input_sh wrote:
| Yes, earlier this year. Epic purchase was early last year.
| throwaway15968 wrote:
| Throwaway, but I work at Bandcamp. We're all very frightened and
| don't know what the future holds. We were told that some, but not
| all, will get offers from Songtradr and it may be up to a month
| before we receive an offer. It's pretty depressing.
| [deleted]
| yuriks wrote:
| Do you think this sale was intended as a union-busting move? It
| sounds like they're not retaining staff with the sale, and this
| timing seems to match with Bandcamp's staff unionization
| efforts.
| Insanity wrote:
| These decisions take time to make. Not sure when the union
| efforts started though - but not sure how likely this would
| be as a result of those efforts..
| brianstorms wrote:
| Is Ethan Diamond still there?
| ip_addr wrote:
| Did something similar happen when Epic Games bought the
| company?
| computerdork wrote:
| Best of luck, hope it all works out!
| meindnoch wrote:
| I beg you, can you please not fucking ruin it? It's perfect as it
| is. Artist uploads music, people pay for music and download it.
| Don't change anything. Don't add new features, don't enshittify
| existing features, don't make design changes, don't do anything.
| Bandcamp is done, no need for any further changes, just put it in
| a cabinet and let it run.
|
| Thanks,
|
| Someone who've spent thousands of dollars on Bandcamp
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Greetings and thank you for expressing your valued concern. We
| wish to emphasize our commitment to customer feedback in our
| ongoing enhancements.
|
| Allow us to assure you that you will enjoy our latest AI music
| generation suite as well as an cutting-edge state-of-the-art
| next-generation AI album cover generator. In tandem with these
| remarkable enhancements, we will be sprucing our algorithms
| allowing you to expand your ears to the emerging artists at the
| forefront of the industry.
|
| Furthermore, we are introducing a suite of premium subscription
| options, enriched with the ability to curate offline playlists,
| meticulously optimized at a pristine bit-rate of 32kbps.
|
| Drawing inspiration from the insights garnered from record
| labels these enhancements epitomize our pioneering
| advancements, we eagerly anticipate your enthusiastic feedback
| of these remarkable transformations.
|
| Sincerely ~ out of touch CEO
| meindnoch wrote:
| I chuckled. But you forgot audio watermarks and 1.5x price
| for FLAC.
| jerhewet wrote:
| https://bandcamp.com/jerhewet
|
| Very sad. Bandcamp was wonderful ... while it lasted.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > Bandcamp is good, it's profitable and sustainable and it
| basically works.
|
| If they're profitable then why do we need to play these games?
| Why can't we keep a good thing going?
| [deleted]
| wnevets wrote:
| > If they're profitable then why do we need to play these
| games?
|
| Because that isn't enough we must have infinite growth.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| It's time to adopt the classical Accounting 101 view of
| businesses:
|
| They reach profitability, then they throw off dividends,
| which the shareholders invest in (presumably) new businesses.
|
| NOT "they keep the profits to create infinite growth
| themselves."
| 7373737373 wrote:
| Is there a list of organizations/platforms, like lichess.org
| that have/will never sell out?
| dylan604 wrote:
| how can you have a list of something like "will never"? a
| list of people claiming "will never" but never is a really
| really long time, and nobody can predict the future.
| tmountain wrote:
| How could someone predict that? What litmus test could
| possible evaluate organized groups of humans resistance to
| greed?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _How could someone predict that?_
|
| Sell the service to users and re-launch as a co-operative.
| JohnFen wrote:
| That wouldn't be a guarantee, though. I've seen
| businesses do that and years later go down the bad road
| anyway.
| 7373737373 wrote:
| Lichess, legally, is now a charitable organization
|
| https://lichess.org/terms-of-service
| derstander wrote:
| > Lichess, legally, is now a charitable organization
|
| I'm not saying Lichess will do something like this, but
| have you heard the saga of the Environmental Research
| Institute of Michigan (ERIM)?
|
| It grew out of the University of Michigan -- as a non-
| profit. Its president and board spun off a for-profit
| subsidiary owning the majority of its work, people, and
| assets and leaving a small fraction for the non-profit.
|
| Then, the for-profit entity was bought by a succession of
| other entities: Veridian, General Dynamics, and now
| MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates.
|
| I only learned of this while working with a graybeard
| from the original ERIM during their General Dynamics days
| -- he was still sore about it.
|
| So never doubt a president/ceo and board if they're
| really determined in going for-profit!
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Research_In
| sti...
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > working with a graybeard
|
| This language is offensive (to me [0]) and sexist. Feel
| free to use it if it really floats your boat, but you
| could get the same effect without the implicit sexism
| just using "oldster". You could also say "older
| colleague", or even just "person".
|
| [0] and I don't even have a beard
| jprd wrote:
| Thank you for sharing your feelings on this one, I hadn't
| heard of "graybeard" categorized that way by anyone
| before, though I can see your point-of-view and respect
| it.
|
| That being said, if the person was an actual human being,
| and subsequently had a graybeard (as I do!) - would that
| still be offensive?
|
| I don't intend to be combative, simply trying to learn!
| rectang wrote:
| I'd cite the Apache Software Foundation.
|
| * Unlike many other tech foundations, it's a 501(c)(3)
| charity, which dramatically limits the ability of industry
| titans to buy influence -- since donations are tax deductible
| and thus cannot be used to unduly advantage any commercial
| entity.
|
| * The Board of Directors is elected by the "Membership",
| which is primarily comprised of individuals who have
| contributed the most towards ASF projects. It's a sort of co-
| op structure which ensures that the org stays aligned to the
| interests of certain stakeholders.
|
| (FWIW I used to be very involved at the ASF but have not been
| active for several years.)
|
| I've often wondered whether an analogous charitable
| organization owned by musicians could slot into music
| distribution, in the space of DistroKid / TuneCore / CDBaby
| -- handling royalties, QC'ing releases, and bargaining with
| audience-facing distributors like Spotify, Amazon, Apple,
| etc.
| JohnFen wrote:
| This makes me very nervous. Bandcamp is one of the few great
| sources to buy new music and support artists rather than labels.
| I hope that it doesn't get ruined.
| lucasgonze wrote:
| Epic owning Bandcamp never made sense.
|
| Getting Bandcamp off the books is likely to make the business
| look better to investors.
| samtheprogram wrote:
| Bandcamp is profitable. How would selling at what's likely a
| loss from their purchase price going to look good to investors?
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