Time to make sure you have downloaded everything you bought on BC.
I download everything I buy on BC immediately.
Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off
481–490 of 507 posts
Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US? Having to go to the hospital, having an illness etc can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Other countries pay more per paycheck, we pay a lot more per bill. Going to the hospital would bankrupt me even as a relatively well off software engineer and even with my decent (work-tied) healthcare I still have months of wait time. In order to get into a doctor I made an appointment in February for a visit in Sep…
In US if you are a software engineer, what percentage of your salary would you spend for health insurance, medicine, copay etc?
Healthcare shouldn't be something only software engineers and other well off people can afford.
Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know about elsewhere, but under UK law this would be illegal - precisely to stop this sort of thing happening. The new company has to offer employees a "transfer of previous employment" - so even though you're working for someone else, your history at the previous company is moved over with you. So if they wanted to get rid of you, they would then have to go through a redundancy process - which involves expla…
But in this case apparently they didn't actually sell the company, so no employees moved. The employees were still employed at Epic, until laid off by Epic. So presuming there was a violation of labor law (in the US or hypothetically in the UK) wouldn't all liability rest with Epic? Unless the argument is that it really _was_ a sale of the company, which probably rests on very technical arguments specific to the juri…
The Songtradr press release says "we have acquired Bandcamp" - which to my ears sounds like "we have taken ownership of the company registration" (in UK terms). In which case TUPE would apply, if they were Bandcamp employees. Even if Bandcamp was dissolved as a company, I suspect there would be a case for TUPE seeing as the acquisition happened so soon after the dissolution.
If they were Epic, not Bandcamp, employees then Songtradr would be within their rights to proceed as they have. But Epic would have had to go through a redundancy process (including explaining why it's happening, detailing the alternative tactics they have explored and trying to find other roles within the organisation for the affected employees).
Of course, it's all immaterial as UK law doesn't apply (and I only took a short qualification in it so I know it's fiendishly complex anyway).
EDITED to remove information I had included in the original post
Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US? Having to go to the hospital, having an illness etc can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Other countries pay more per paycheck, we pay a lot more per bill. Going to the hospital would bankrupt me even as a relatively well off software engineer and even with my decent (work-tied) healthcare I still have months of wait time. In order to get into a doctor I made an appointment in February for a visit in Sep…
In US if you are a software engineer, what percentage of your salary would you spend for health insurance, medicine, copay etc?
If you're a software engineer, your employer would provide you with a plan that covers most, or even all of the cost.
Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not every talented person is motivated by greed for personal wealth and status. Actually most aren't.
Forget about money - do you know a lot of talented people who are happy working with people who don't share the same motivations?
Of course? The most famously talented people their lives teaching, mentoring and otherwise trying to lift up those around them. Could any person be an effective leader if they didn't enjoy the challenge of working with people with different values and motivations to themselves? I've certainly never seen one.
Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
Odd then that the USA has a much lower labor force participation rate than Germany.
Because Germany has "make-work" policies; if you want a job, you can get one repaving roads, cleaning up trash, or otherwise maintaining public infrastructure. My American uncle sneered at this "work for the boys" attitude, but as a lifelong US resident, I can't help but envy that solution.
The comment I'm replying to claimed fewer people _want_ jobs in a system such as Germany's.
Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off
#487This kind of explains why Epic sold them. This still doesn't explain why Epic bought them…
To use as a pawn in their app store lawsuits https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/04/epic-games-drags-ban...
That seems like a rather obviously wrong take. There were ample companies supporting Epic (or rather, fighting Apple) before they filed their lawsuit, which was also long before Epic acquired bandcamp.
08/2020 Epic files suit against Apple and Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple
09/2020 Discussion of Epic vs. Bandcamp and app store fees: https://www.shacknews.com/article/120550/tim-sweeney-on-why-...
05/2021 "The trial ran from May 3 to May 24, 2021" from the same wikipedia link.
03/2022 Epic acquires bandcamp, a year after their trial. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/arts/music/epic-games-ban...
Why would Epic acquire bandcamp as a "pawn" to use a year after their trial concluded? It's far more reasonable to assume Epic had a legitimate business interest in Bandcamp, and if anything, the execs of the companies had started talking due to the (concluded) lawsuit and shared interest in not losing 30% of their revenue.
Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off
#488In any case anyone wants to read about a EU perspective: Over here in Germany the "trick" of doing an asset deal to get rid of employees (and any benefits they may have earned over time) is very risky, and can fire back massively. It's not a black-and-white thing, but the labor courts have check-lists: - Are people at the new company work on the same tasks as they did in the old one? - Are people at the new company s…
Super informative. I must reveal my bias toward a free market here, but I also remember keenly what it was like to be a powerless employee. Germany appears to have by far the strongest economy in the EU but with higher unemployment than the USA. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the balance there vs the USA? I can imagine compelling arguments for each approach.
Unemployment rate in Germany is about 5%, so comparable.
As with many labor protection laws, it is a mixed bag. Basically the regulation I have mentioned tries to separate the cases of "true asset deal" vs. "fake asset deal". That works most of the times, but sometimes an asset deal that was supposed to serve a genuinely good cause (one business trying to sell off a technology to another) to later got flagged as a transfer of business by courts, causing companies to go bankrupt, with ALL jobs being lost.
Being an employer myself, I once got bitten with wrongly getting flagged when trying to rescue the technology my shareholders had financially run into the ground, but a higher court later corrected that and decided that the motivation of the asset deal had been proper.
Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off
#489So Epic basically bought bandcamp, shot it thru the head and sold the corpse to Songtradr. Shame
In your analogy, why did this successful, profitable company (Bandcamp) need to be acquired?
Following that, why did Epic choose to get rid of a successful, profitable, independent sub-company that would have helped keep Epic profitable?
It sure looks like Bandcamp was already failing and unprofitable, and selling out to Epic was a desperate attempt to keep the company alive. Songtradr seems to agree with Epic that bandcamp is not solvent and cannot continue operating as it was.
This sucks because Bandcamp is great, but it's not hard to see the writing on the wall. All Epic did here is inject cash into bandcamp's corpse to keep it alive for an extra year or two, before it had to cut the IV drip.
Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off
#490This kind of explains why Epic sold them. This still doesn't explain why Epic bought them…
This is just a guess from a UE game developer, but:
a) Epic makes Unreal Engine and runs an asset store that includes sounds and music. Why not include bandcamp and their huge catalog in that store?
b) Epic makes Fortnite, which has tons of music industry tie-ins through purchasable emotes, song tracks, and free in-game concerts. Bandcamp sounds like a great avenue to expand existing agreements to sell music through Fortnite.
c) Epic also acquired Harmonix, which is the original developer of Guitar Hero and various music game spinoffs. Who knows wtf they're doing with Harmonix, but Harmonix+Bandcamp seems like an easy business strategy. "Buy this album on bandcamp and get it in the new Harmonix game too", and vice versa.
Epic has their hands in an awful lot of pies these days, and their layoff statement seemed to be a straightforward admission that their eyes were bigger than their stomach.