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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?

#171

Post by thirdsun »

deng wrote: post #161
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

> It's perfect as it is. Artist uploads music, people pay for music and download it. Don't change anything. Coudn't agree less. Listen: I love Bandcamp and buy a lot of music there. However, it could be so much better. It is far from perfect. For starters: the collection view. It's as barebones as possible, just a simple grid of stuff you bought. No way of separating albums and tracks (which is why I don't buy single…

> Another thing that has annoyed me for years is if artists release through labels: If I click on an artist, I want to see their music, not all music from the same label so that I have to painfully look through the whole catalogue to find more music from the same artist. Also, if I want to be notified for new music from that artist, I can only follow the label, so I get notified for everything they release. What kind of insanity is this? With very few exceptions, I don't care about labels (sorry label owners, but that's just how it is).

What you describe only happens if a label uses an artist account. Bandcamp introduced label accounts years ago, encourages using them and to my knowledge offers a way to turn artist accounts into label accounts. With a label account both entities, labels and artists, are separated. The label catalogue merely links to the artist's release page while the artist's account can feature releases on several different labels. Of course the release/album page still offers a way back to the label page. It all works as one would expect.

Here's an example for a release by Matthew Halsall on Gondwana Records using a proper label account: https://matthewhalsall.bandcamp.com/album/an-ever-changing-v... - notice the link to Gondwana Records in the upper left corner.

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

#172

Post by davidgerard »

hatsix wrote: post #90
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…

then you should check out SongTradr's other recent acquisition, 7digital.com... not only do they have flac, but many have 16 and 24bit available.

that's interesting, sounds like they're on a bit of a buying spree too?

7Digital is one of those money-losing companies that keeps being passed from owner to owner.

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

#173

Post by Mashimo »

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

> It's perfect as it is.

Hell to the no!

I primarily use bandcamp for my music, but it's most definitively not perfect. I think I use about 3 browser addons for simple quality of life improvements.

Sometimes the player is on the top left, sometimes it's bound to the bottom, sometimes it's inlined and you can only press play without fast forward.

I think by default there are no or only a few shortcuts?

Playlist only from your collection and mobile only, not on desktop?

I lowkey had high hopes for bandcamp when epic bought it. I though the cash would make them rework the UI into a more consistent experience.

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

#174

Post by happymellon »

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.

Epic is a proper trainwreck, and summerises all that is wrong with management.

It feels like there is absolutely no direction except "grow customer base in every way except treating our customer and employees like humans", to the point where they give games away, and still can't take over the market.

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

#175

Post by davidgerard »

rendall wrote: post #163

> Game music and classical are the same genre, right? I know that was meant facetiously, but the music in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for one is quite beautiful and made with actual instruments like piano, oboe, violin, guitar. Interactivity is one direction for true innovation in contemporary classical.

This is the sort of thing I meant, yes :-) My kid loves (a) game music (b) classical (c) complicated metal, and I will absolutely hold that these are different faces of the same thing.

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

#176

Post by zimpenfish »

I am mildly amused that the "offer musicians a platform to sell and license their music in one easy place" was the (pivoted[1]) focus of a startup I worked at few years back. Except they were backing it with Ethereum and smart contracts.

[1] about three months before they folded due to the original plan[2] not working.

[2] which involved getting record companies to easily license their music and yes, you are probably laughing at about the right level just now.

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

#177

Post by Kbelicius »

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…

> 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.

I had paid things removed from my bandcamp collection a few years ago. The only recourse provided by band camp was to contact the artist(al things were from the same artist). If the experience of another user that responded to you about being able to download removed things that were paid for... well that is much better than the bandcamp experience since I can not download things that were removed.

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

#178

Post by epolanski »

happymellon wrote: post #174
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.

Epic is a proper trainwreck, and summerises all that is wrong with management. It feels like there is absolutely no direction except "grow customer base in every way except treating our customer and employees like humans", to the point where they give games away, and still can't take over the market.

Care to elaborate?

In which way Epic did not treat employees like humans? I know few people at Epic myself and I've never heard them say anything but Epic being their best employer in their career, by far.

Also, how do they not treat customers like humans?

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

#179

Post by CodesInChaos »

PeterStuer wrote: post #160
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Also watermark free?

Is bandcamp watermark free?

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

#180

Post by altacc »

yuriks wrote: post #32
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.

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.

It was probably mostly about cash balance for the company. I once worked in a company that was a niche business but very profitable and with predictable cash flow. That made it very quick and easy to sell when needed, basically a tradeable asset. Twice in the space of a few years it was sold when the current owner wanted some cash and another had excess cash. Sounds like this is the case with Bandcamp.

In my middle management experience, being profitable and owned by a company that didn't share the business domain was best as they mostly left us alone as long as we were profitable. When they finally got bought by a similar business, that's when they tried (and failed) to merge jobs. I've since left but they've recently been spun out yet again.

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