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Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

variety.com

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Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#181

Post by indigochill »

MadcapJake wrote: post #169

Is there any good kit out there for artists to self host their own store/player?

I don't yet know if it's any good, but I'm looking into Funkwhale right now, which was originally created as an open source alternative to Grooveshark. It is, however, explicitly designed for music under free licenses (whether creative commons or something else), so it's not an option for many artists.

Another option I just came across is https://codeberg.org/simonrepp/faircamp which sets out to be an open source Bandcamp clone, conveniently enough. It does appear to have payment options, but I'm unsure whether they're actually functional since I haven't tried it myself yet (but I plan to).

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#183

Post by dleslie »

redsolver wrote: post #170
dleslie wrote: post #133

And now I'm using an automatic downloader to fetch all the FLAC encodings of the several hundred albums that I purchased from Bandcamp.

which one are you using? I could not find an up-to-date one on GitHub. thanks!

Bandcamper for Chrome. Just finished downloading over 300 albums.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bandcamper/nafpaeh...

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#184

Post by siver_john »

arwhatever wrote: post #176
siver_john wrote: post #22

This feels like a major blow, as someone who just semi recently (probably around pandemic start) started getting into purchasing flac music from indie artists, Bandcamp was a great source of music. I understand nothing will change in the short term, but long term I am very concerned. Especially as streaming becomes more dominant and companies are less willing to provide flac based music and physical discs (where I ca…

Would Bandcamp the business model + Bandcamp the website necessarily be difficult to reproduce, particularly in an environment in which the Bandcamp niche just became no longer fulfilled due to changing practices on the part of Original Bandcamp?

I can't imagine the infrastructure to do it is trivial, but I would say the larger burden is network effect. Bandcamp has existed for a long time and I know of indie record labels who use it as their default distribution. I am aware there are indie alternatives (some of which provided in the comments to my first comment). Also disruption of service often results in loss, would someone who is no longer focused on music move there stuff over if things changed dramatically? Would people download in time, etc?

Obviously this is all speculation, bandcamp could continue on as it has been for the conceivable future, but I am less pleased about that future than I was before I saw this news.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#185

Post by antihero »

pl0x wrote: post #132
siver_john wrote: post #22

This feels like a major blow, as someone who just semi recently (probably around pandemic start) started getting into purchasing flac music from indie artists, Bandcamp was a great source of music. I understand nothing will change in the short term, but long term I am very concerned. Especially as streaming becomes more dominant and companies are less willing to provide flac based music and physical discs (where I ca…

Are you willing to fund Bandcamp?

As an OG pirate in my teens and a what elite in my twenties I’ve been spending on average about £50 a month on bandcamp for pretty much all of my thirties.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#187

Post by heleninboodler »

antihero wrote: post #178
Apocryphon wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet so many modern day startups have no viable exit strategy beyond acquisition- what does that say about the state of the industry, and of founders' commitments towards building a sustainable product?

Why do things need an exit strategy, why can they not simply exist and do good work and pay people fairly? Does everything have to exist purely to maximise profit?

The employees who traded compensation for equity probably don't agree. Bandcamp's success is built partially on this trade and at some point it needs to pay off for them. I suppose they could stay private forever and give out profit-sharing bonuses, but I think people go into this expecting an exit.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#188

Post by Invictus0 »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #168
Apocryphon wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet so many modern day startups have no viable exit strategy beyond acquisition- what does that say about the state of the industry, and of founders' commitments towards building a sustainable product?

> And yet so many modern day startups have no viable exit strategy beyond acquisition Bandcamp was already profitable and has been for years. The pandemic dramatically increased their sales. They were doing fine. Why did they need an exit ? That is the real flaw of SV thinking: that simply being a profitable, going concern is somehow inadequate. The result is monopoly accretion as small companies are repeatedly swall…

SV is not a homogeneous thought-entity. Maybe the founders were tired of running it or wanted to move on to do something else. Businesses get bought and sold all the time and don't need to be a lifetime commitment for the founder (it would still get sold or shutdown at that point anyway).

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#190

Post by ryantgtg »

throwhauser wrote: post #85

I don't know anything about Epic Games, but as a huge fan of Bandcamp, this feels like a bit of a drag. There's something about Bandcamp that seems exactly right. It's an open, fair and creative way to discover and publish music, that is really distinct from the rest of the music business. I'm struggling to see how that fits into a gigantic video game company. If it has to pull in so much money that it "moves the nee…

I’m with you. Never heard of this Epic Games company. This is worrying.

I fell behind on downloading all of my 426 purchases on bandcamp, but now I feel a strong desire to catch up.

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