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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?

#71

Post by xoac »

ubermonkey wrote: post #65
pdntspa wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I really wonder if you can do this in a double blind, ABX test.

Note that parent is a DJ and while DJing the files are bot just reproduced but usually there is some digital processing involved. This makes it easier to hear the difference.

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

#72

Post by docpop »

Insanity wrote: post #60
yuriks wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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..

Bandcamp workers voted in favor of a union in March 16th of this year. It was one year and a week after Epic acquired the company.

It's impossible to know what Epic is thinking know, or even when they bought BC, but 6 months sounds like how long it would take to sell Bandcamp off as a retaliation for unionizing.

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

#73

Post by jorams »

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…

For an online music store with DRM free downloads I like Qobuz. Available quality depends on the album/song, but if something is not on Bandcamp it's a good, no-nonsense alternative.

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

#74

Post by [deleted] »

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" (…

[deleted]

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

#75

Post by [deleted] »

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

[deleted]

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

#76

Post by [deleted] »

JohnFen wrote: post #62
Kye wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lossless is mainly for mixing/remixing, not listening.

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]

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

#77

Post by masfuerte »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #50
derstander wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Old women grow beards too, though it is very unfashionable at the moment. British comedian Liza Tarbuck did an entertaining and thought provoking piece on the subject a few years ago but I was disappointed to learn that the beard she sported was stuck on rather than home grown.

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

#78

Post by foresto »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #52
eindiran wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 bitrate is with a more efficient codec). I'm probably opening a can of worms here, but I'm really quite skeptical 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…

> I'm really quite skeptical more than one in a million people could tell the difference

Consider that lossless is good not only for listening, but also for transcoding. For example, when you want to use a media player with limited formats, or when the inevitable future codecs become popular.

(And for archival of digital source material, lossless is the only sensible option.)

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

#79

Post by derstander »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #50
derstander wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

He was in fact an old male with a gray beard and actually referred to himself as such.

To respond to your descendant response to a sibling comment, he was not, however, a programmer: he was an engineer.

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

#80

Post by BLKNSLVR »

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.

For what it's worth in this depressing and anxious waiting period: thank you for your efforts, and I sincerely hope you can continue as you have been.

As many other commenters have pointed out, Bandcamp is a great service. For me, it's really the only place I purchase music because of its commitment to paying artists fairly and offering FLAC downloads of the purchased music.

Again, thank you and good luck!

As an aside, I support unionisation precisely as the counterpoint it is intended to be, and any management actions against unionisation should be treated with suspicion and I generally look at that kind of behaviour as the base reason why unions need to exist in the first place.

(Both sides can be corrupt, but if there's only power on one side, then the corruption is both more likely to occur and increase).

I hope the unionisation thing is totally unrelated to this situation.

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