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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?

#104
post #98

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.

SongTradr's main business focuses on earning money for musicians. We aren't in the business of owning music and then licensing it, we're in the business of connecting musicians with companies that want music. some of it is advertising, some is YouTube/content creation, and some is for streaming ( https://pretzel.rocks , which is how I joined the company). We support the artists by finding diverse ways for them to mon…

You guys might be interested in this company:

https://leveltwo.com.au

My buddies and I did a project for them a few years back working on a song discovery mechanism (which they patented) for use when finding songs to pitch for things like ads and tv shows that might be of interest to your company.

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

#105

> 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?

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

It’s a very short list. Patagonia is on it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate...

https://hbr.org/2022/10/what-happens-when-a-company-like-pat...

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

#106

What would an employee-owned Bandcamp-like platform look like? Has anyone experimented with or attempted this model to prevent or stave off enshittification?

These guys have been trying to get something similar off the ground for years but don’t seem to have been able to get traction.

https://resonate.coop/

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

#107
post #104
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SongTradr's main business focuses on earning money for musicians. We aren't in the business of owning music and then licensing it, we're in the business of connecting musicians with companies that want music. some of it is advertising, some is YouTube/content creation, and some is for streaming ( https://pretzel.rocks , which is how I joined the company). We support the artists by finding diverse ways for them to mon…

You guys might be interested in this company: https://leveltwo.com.au My buddies and I did a project for them a few years back working on a song discovery mechanism (which they patented) for use when finding songs to pitch for things like ads and tv shows that might be of interest to your company.

thanks! I think we're technically an Australian company, at least, our founder is Australian and we have a very large investor that is Australian.

Music supervisors are a big part of our business, so I'll pass this link up the line (I'm an engineer)

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

#108
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they're profitable then why do we need to play these games? Because that isn't enough we must have infinite growth.

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."

You’d need to fix the tax code for that to work. Good luck getting that by Congress anytime soon!

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

#109
post #107
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys might be interested in this company: https://leveltwo.com.au My buddies and I did a project for them a few years back working on a song discovery mechanism (which they patented) for use when finding songs to pitch for things like ads and tv shows that might be of interest to your company.

thanks! I think we're technically an Australian company, at least, our founder is Australian and we have a very large investor that is Australian. Music supervisors are a big part of our business, so I'll pass this link up the line (I'm an engineer)

Hey look at that you can even see the patent online!

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/23/09/13/1877d77...

And they misspelled my name as Lain :(

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

#110
post #100
post #37

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.

I work at SongTradr, and while I'm not involved with the acquisition, I wouldn't expect it to drastically change for end users. I hope that we'll drastically improve things for musicians, offering them more ways to earn money from their music.

famous last words... i'll check back in a year and see how bandcamp has been gutted by songtradr.
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