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Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

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Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#211

Post by onethought »

zirgs wrote: post #37
onethought wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have shares - you are exploited for your surplus value. This is true for any and all wage based labour.

Not really - if you are salaried worker - you get paid even if the project that you are working on fails. You trade potential profit for stability. But if you are a founder/investor who works on your own stuff then you will lose your own money if the project fails.

No, if you don’t generate surplus value. You get fired. One project sure, maybe your ROI window for your employer is higher than that. But it still holds true.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#212

Post by willcipriano »

gruez wrote: post #193
willcipriano wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Buying things out of pocket" was such a smart tactic from the union. Have each teacher buy a box of pencils for a few dollars and complain loudly so people think you are spending much more.

If that's the case why don't we see school boards have expense policies to shut them up?

Why dosent the union have its members just refuse to buy anything?

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#213

Post by onethought »

drekipus wrote: post #38
onethought wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have shares - you are exploited for your surplus value. This is true for any and all wage based labour.

When in the world will this meme end. If I am paid to dig holes, then a hole is not worth anything to me except for what someone will pay for it. I'm not going to stay at home and dig all these holes in my back yard and glimmer with glee at all this surplus value that I've kept to myself. Code is the exact same. Me writing a python module to process a CSV file is not at all valuable to me, but the wage I'm paid for m…

It’s not a meme. You do something that is sold for X and you are paid X-Y. y is your surplus value.

True you possibly couldn’t get that y on your own. But someone got it, and it wasn’t you.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#214

Post by fnomnom »

drcongo wrote: post #89
johnnyanmac wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the perspective of a Bandcamp customer, does any of this actually affect their ability to browse, buy, and listen to music? "ruin" implies the quality degraded, while "nothing" implies a neutral progression. The only degregation here is the layoffs from the torch passing, but I believe Bandcamp still has more employees now than they did before being acquired.

Nearly the entire editorial staff have been laid off, for music fans /artists of certain genres, these were the only people writing about their music. That's a significant degradation. The employee head count bit needs a citation I think, I wasn't aware that Epic had hired anyone at all into the Bandcamp team during their brief custody which would make that statement completely impossible.

what did they edit? im honestly curious as in my perception bandcamp is something that i get a link to from a band and that i then use to buy music. have problably spent a couple of 100 € over the years there.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#215

Post by silenced_trope »

gruez wrote: post #198
axus wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if a compromise between "French-style" and "American-style" would be the government taking over the layoff business. Need to cut headcount? Send the Department of Labor your payroll, and they'll tell you who to lay-off.

I can't wait for the next layoff where my newly hired star performers get laid off because some bureaucrat thought tenure was more important than job performance or whether they were working on an important project or not.

[flagged]

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#216

Post by crtasm »

datenwolf wrote: post #199

Does anyone know the size of Bandcamp's catalogue. I'm just wondering about hardware costs (storage) would be for prospective competitors who intend to swoop up Bandcamp's customers (artists and listeners). Audio is a lot less demanding than video, and since there's no DRM it's basically just static files with some access control.

Their API reports 52,774,875 tracks.

https://bandcamp.com/api/mobile/24/serverinfo?platform=andro...

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#217

Post by onethought »

baggy_trough wrote: post #82
onethought wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have shares - you are exploited for your surplus value. This is true for any and all wage based labour.

Do you mean because the company values my labor more than they pay me, that's exploitation? How about when I buy eggs from the grocery and value them more than they cost me, so that there is consumer surplus. Is that exploitation?

Exploiting an egg?

Having people produce something and not paying them what it is worth so someone else can profit - is exploitation.

Remove the prejudice from the word. Just like if you “exploit a coal seam” or “exploit sunlight to generate electricity”. You are deriving value from something where the benefit is more than the cost. When the exploitation crosses a human, it (rightly) takes on a negative connotation.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#218

Post by lkramer »

kundi wrote: post #147
Applejinx wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did not occur to you that musicians would look at the terms of their contract? You plan to, but have not yet, implement unspecified changes, not for musicians but 'law-oriented music lovers'? I am just about speechless. May your 'sacred child' not come to term. edit: I can't find any sign that anybody else anywhere is even aware of this… if what you mean is that the project is JUST you, and there won't be anybody…

I apologize if this got transmitted in the inappropriate form. Could you share your perspective on what would be the most productive terms for the independent musicians and what all would you expect them to entail?

If you were really on the independent musicians side, the default should always be that they retain all rights to their own work. That is what was attractive about Bandcamp for musicians, they were merely a payment processor.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#219

Post by NoGravitas »

username332211 wrote: post #90
vanderZwan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teachers are unionized here and are one of the most powerful political forces. This does not seem compatible with all the stories I've heard about underpaid teachers having to buy material for their students out of their own pocket. I'm sure it somehow ends up both being true in a twisted way, but it still sounds strange.

If you think about it, American teachers are the most obvious example of why unionization doesn't necessarily improve anything at all. An average class of 24 costs just short of $700k per year to the citizens of New York City and the cost is rising rapidly every year. Meanwhile, teachers are supposed to be underpaid, overworked and exploited. I guess teachers are supposed to take solace in the fact they are very powe…

In many states, the "teachers' union" isn't really a union at all — it lobbies, but it can neither collectively bargain nor strike.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#220

Post by drcongo »

fnomnom wrote: post #214
drcongo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly the entire editorial staff have been laid off, for music fans /artists of certain genres, these were the only people writing about their music. That's a significant degradation. The employee head count bit needs a citation I think, I wasn't aware that Epic had hired anyone at all into the Bandcamp team during their brief custody which would make that statement completely impossible.

what did they edit? im honestly curious as in my perception bandcamp is something that i get a link to from a band and that i then use to buy music. have problably spent a couple of 100 € over the years there.

It's not that hard to visit the Bandcamp home page and see a ton of editorial content. I've spent thousands, if that's relevant.
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