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Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean for the musicians?

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Re: Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean for the musicians?

#41

Post by meindnoch »

doublerabbit wrote: post #34
meindnoch wrote: post #25

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

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…

I chuckled. But you forgot audio watermarks and 1.5x price for FLAC.

Re: Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean for the musicians?

#42

Post by brianstorms »

ye-olde-sysrq wrote: post #19

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" (…

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.

Re: Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean for the musicians?

#44

Post by input_sh »

meowtimemania wrote: post #35
sparrish wrote: post #8

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!

did they unionize while at epic?

Yes, earlier this year. Epic purchase was early last year.

Re: Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean for the musicians?

#45

Post by brianstorms »

throwaway15968 wrote: post #24

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.

Is Ethan Diamond still there?

Re: Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean for the musicians?

#46

Post by [deleted] »

rodgerd wrote: post #15
slg wrote: post #3

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.

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".

[deleted]

Re: Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean for the musicians?

#47

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tmountain wrote: post #16
7373737373 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a list of organizations/platforms, like lichess.org that have/will never sell out?

How could someone predict that? What litmus test could possible evaluate organized groups of humans resistance to greed?

> How could someone predict that?

Sell the service to users and re-launch as a co-operative.

Re: Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean for the musicians?

#48

Post by eindiran »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #40
Modified3019 wrote: post #20

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 i…

> 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 s…

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.

Re: Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean for the musicians?

#50

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

derstander wrote: post #26
7373737373 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lichess, legally, is now a charitable organization https://lichess.org/terms-of-service

> 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, th…

> 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

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