29 ms·

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

333 points by davidgerard 3y ago

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
> 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?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- 7373737373 3y ago
  Is there a list of organizations/platforms, like lichess.org that have/will never sell out?
  - dylan604 3y ago
    how can you have a list of something like "will never"? a list of people claiming "will never" but never is a really really long time, and nobody can predict the future.
  - tmountain 3y ago
    How could someone predict that? What litmus test could possible evaluate organized groups of humans resistance to greed?
    - 7373737373 3y ago
      Lichess, legally, is now a charitable organization https://lichess.org/terms-of-service https://lichess.org/terms-of-service
      - derstander 3y ago
        > Lichess, legally, is now a charitable organization I’m not saying Lichess will do something like this, but have you heard the saga of the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM)? It grew out of the University of Michigan — as a non-profit. Its president and board spun off a for-profit subsidiary owning the majority of its work, people, and assets and leaving a small fraction for the non-profit. Then, the for-profit entity was bought by a succession of other entities: Veridian, General Dynamics, and now MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates. I only learned of this while working with a graybeard from the original ERIM during their General Dynamics days — he was still sore about it. So never doubt a president/ceo and board if they’re really determined in going for-profit! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Research_Institute_of_Michigan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Research_Insti...
        PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
        > working with a graybeard This language is offensive (to me [0]) and sexist. Feel free to use it if it really floats your boat, but you could get the same effect without the implicit sexism just using "oldster". You could also say "older colleague", or even just "person". [0] and I don't even have a beard
        jprd 3y ago
        Thank you for sharing your feelings on this one, I hadn't heard of "graybeard" categorized that way by anyone before, though I can see your point-of-view and respect it. That being said, if the person was an actual human being, and subsequently had a graybeard (as I do!) - would that still be offensive? I don't intend to be combative, simply trying to learn!
        PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
        If you really feel that they color and presence of their facial hair was the best way to describe whatever it was that felt relevant to mentioning them, I can't really call that offensive. But the term "graybeard" is known in these circles as a reference to an older, always male, programmer. What actually matters is that they've been around the block enough times to understand (for example) that Rust probably will not solve every programming issue known to current programmers. Their gender and facial hair status is not really relevant. "Corner office grump" would be another term that I'd find entirely acceptable: non-gendered, unconcerned with physical appearance, but encapsulating much the same sort of personality that "graybeard" is attempting to evoke.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > How could someone predict that? Sell the service to users and re-launch as a co-operative.
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        That wouldn't be a guarantee, though. I've seen businesses do that and years later go down the bad road anyway.
  - rectang 3y ago
    I'd cite the Apache Software Foundation. * Unlike many other tech foundations, it's a 501(c)(3) charity, which dramatically limits the ability of industry titans to buy influence — since donations are tax deductible and thus cannot be used to unduly advantage any commercial entity. * The Board of Directors is elected by the "Membership", which is primarily comprised of individuals who have contributed the most towards ASF projects. It's a sort of co-op structure which ensures that the org stays aligned to the interests of certain stakeholders. (FWIW I used to be very involved at the ASF but have not been active for several years.) I've often wondered whether an analogous charitable organization owned by musicians could slot into music distribution, in the space of DistroKid / TuneCore / CDBaby — handling royalties, QC'ing releases, and bargaining with audience-facing distributors like Spotify, Amazon, Apple, etc.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      It can work and there are some organizations run that way. But just because something is a charity with a Board of Directors doesn't mean it can't be looted in various ways. It's happened before and will happen again.
  - Mistletoe 3y ago
    It’s a very short list. Patagonia is on it. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate-philanthropy-chouinard.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate... https://hbr.org/2022/10/what-happens-when-a-company-like-patagonia-becomes-a-nonprofit https://hbr.org/2022/10/what-happens-when-a-company-like-pat...
  - Nemo_bis 3y ago
    Check the International Cooperative Alliance. There's a list of national federations and you can find coops from there. https://www.ica.coop/en https://www.ica.coop/en
- wnevets 3y ago
  > If they're profitable then why do we need to play these games? Because that isn't enough we must have infinite growth.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    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."
    - lazide 3y ago
      You’d need to fix the tax code for that to work. Good luck getting that by Congress anytime soon!
      - AlbertCory 3y ago
        For sure. "double taxation of dividends" isn't something that gets Democrats' blood racing. However, most of the HN discussion on issues like this is for things that'll never happen, so I don't see any difference.
        lazide 3y ago
        It isn’t even that per-se. It’s treatment of dividends as income vs long term capital gains. Very, very different tax rates and degree of flexibility re: when you’d get taxed.
        AlbertCory 3y ago
        Right. And that leaves out that the company's already paid taxes on them.
        lazide 3y ago
        Correct, that is just the icing on top.
- daydream 3y ago
  > Bandcamp is good, it’s profitable and sustainable and it basically works. What's the source for the profitability claim?
slg 3y ago
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.
- rodgerd 3y ago
  Turns out that growth based on an assumption that your model of "slot machines for children" is not infinitely exponential and cannot subsidise "free games on PCs to compete with Steam while trying to dictate to Apple how they build their products".
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - spywaregorilla 3y ago
    Epic stopped selling lootboxes a couple years before grabbing bandcamp.
- happymellon 3y ago
  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.
  - epolanski 3y ago
    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?
mgkimsal 3y ago
> Songtradr is talking up using its licensing prowess to give opportunities to Bandcamp artists — including licensing on Epic games. So... Epic sells bandcamp, a profitable business unit, to another entity which will then sell bandcamp assets back to ... Epic. ?? And Epic's competitors. Why would Epic go out of its way to support a company that is supporting its competitors?
- codetrotter 3y ago
  If they had plans to use Bandcamp for Epic assets, did it work? If not then I guess that’s a good reason to sell it to someone else.
- davidgerard 3y ago
  (author here) I'm assuming because sync rights are complicated, and Epic didn't quite realise how complicated. But Songtradr literally does rights as its main business. So this would work like Epic outsourcing it to a specialist, with an extra step. I'm still boggling that Epic thought tiny independent record labels would be good for pressuring the union to stop. Tiny labels these days tend to be set up by musicians who work too hard and who likely have close personal knowledge of working shitty jobs. Epic really had NO IDEA.
  - hatsix 3y ago
    I think you're exactly right. Epic thought that buying a music company would let them acquire what they needed to do sync... but sync doesn't matter for Bandcamp, so it was hard for them to align. (while I work for SongTradr, I know nothing of the acquisition, so this is just speculation)
    - vintermann 3y ago
      Just hypothetically, if I wrote a Minecraft mod that replaced the in-game music with music from a streaming service (to be clear, one the user would need to have a subscription for, and authorize via the streaming service's OAuth API)... How sued would I get?
thirteenfingers 3y ago
And I literally just dropped my album this afternoon. I don't know whether I should be worried now.
- codetrotter 3y ago
  Do you have a link to the album?
manicennui 3y ago
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.
- izzydata 3y ago
  You don't trust a company that is trusted by Heineken? But for real. What kind of company needs to list a bunch of random companies and say they are "trusted by" them. If you need to tell me how trusted you are then I really don't trust you.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Indeed. As a wise man once told me... never trust anyone who says "trust me".
- hatsix 3y ago
  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 https://pretzel.rocks, which is how I joined the company). We support the artists by finding diverse ways for them to monetize their music. I've purchased a dozen albums on Bandcamp. All of the artists are already on pretzel (our content acquisition team works hard, especially on internal referrals), but I look forward to simplifying the process down to a simple click (right now it's DDEX and spreadsheets) I'm not a fan of our marketing, but it's more aimed at content licensees, not licensors.
  - dools 3y ago
    You guys might be interested in this company: https://leveltwo.com.au 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.
sparrish 3y ago
Bandcamp employees unionized and Epic couldn't get rid of it fast enough. Can't let that cancer spread to the game devs, oh no!
- meowtimemania 3y ago
  did they unionize while at epic?
  - input_sh 3y ago
    Yes, earlier this year. Epic purchase was early last year.
lucasgonze 3y ago
Epic owning Bandcamp never made sense. Getting Bandcamp off the books is likely to make the business look better to investors.
- samtheprogram 3y ago
  Bandcamp is profitable. How would selling at what's likely a loss from their purchase price going to look good to investors?
  - bensecure 3y ago
    If they paid more for it than its worth, than they lost money the instant they bought it. If they sold it to a company that thought it could increase the value of bandcamp by owning it, then they might have gotten more for it than it was worth when they owned it, hence increasing their own value (or at least making a valuation which was previously potential concrete).
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Investors like to see a company buying up tangentially related businesses, it's good for business! Investors like to see a company divest themselves of non-core-competency sections of its portfolio, it's good for business! Investors are sheep.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - lucasgonze 3y ago
    I'm not an accountant, but I know enough to have a sense of much "creativity" is possible. The purchase price might be in the past, while costs are ongoing. Yes there would be a markdown from purchase to sale, but that's a different line item from the annual run rate.
Kye 3y ago
I don't know who needs to hear this, but you can download all the music you uploaded by starting a draft of a Bandcamp subscription service (after buying something to create an account and profile if you don't have one). All your albums will be added to your personal collection. I suggest FLAC. edit: Magic trick: open one (1) album. Change it to FLAC. Download. Now FLAC is default for the others you open.
ye-olde-sysrq 3y ago
I've posted something to this effect before but I'll post it again. I'm terrified someone is going to enshittify bandcamp. I used to be a huge what fan, primarily for discovery. Never would've known I liked atmospheric black metal if not for them. When they closed, I didn't really have enough "in" in the scene to know where other refugees went, so I just shopped around for anywhere else that would let me get "real" (in the what sense of real - decent encodes from raw source material that have the full spectrum and aren't just FLAC encodes of "high quality" mp3's). I don't pretend to be able to hear the difference, but I like it for archival purposes. I have plexamp transcode the audio anyway when I'm on mobile. Turns out most people don't give a shit so most places don't offer flacs. Except bandcamp. Plus they pay artists fairly, which ended up being as important to me as the flacs as I came to support indie bands for whom selling on bandcamp was a huge lift. I like seeing CDs literally come from residential addresses in Sweden. I like supporting the random 1 dude making awesome metal out of his basement.
- moab 3y ago
  Check out https://rateyourmusic.com/ https://rateyourmusic.com/ which is good for discovery, e.g., https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/atmospheric-black-metal/ https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/atmospheric-black-metal/ and the all-time lists: https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time/g:atmospheric-black-metal/ https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time/g:atmosp... Users also make wonderful charts on this website. also, hello from a fellow what refugee!
  - xrd 3y ago
    I'm very happy you posted this, the information here is really interesting. Thank you.
    - moab 3y ago
      I'm glad you found it useful :-) The other useful resource I will mention is "soulseek" (https://www.slsknet.org/news/ https://www.slsknet.org/news/) which is basically old-school direct downloads, and includes a lot of obscure music that you won't find on AppleMusic/Spotify. Happy trails!
Modified3019 3y ago
Make sure to archive your bandcamp collection, which you can do with the following script: https://github.com/easlice/bandcamp-downloader 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 https://github.com/easlice/bandcamp-downloader/issues/21 You should always archive your collection anyways. One negative thing about bandcamp is that artists/labels/bandcamp can remove anything at anytime for any reason, so things you paid for can straight up disappear. This was very disappointing to discover. Note that sometimes things are set as hidden, rather than outright removed. This info may be outdated, as the relevant support page seems to gave changed from the last time I looked at it. 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. I’m happy enough to hand artists money if it’s easy and I can archive a lossless copy, but if they start fucking around with things, I’ll go right back to doing what I was before. 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.
- deleted 3y ago
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- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  > 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 status is on Mac nowadays), which kind of sucks.
  - eindiran 3y ago
    I have also purchased music on Amazon and let's not pretend its "full on downloads", Amazon has V0 MP3 only iirc and Bandcamp offers ever format under the sun including FLAC and ALAC. Don't know about Apple because iTunes doesn't have Linux support and the whole setup of downloading an app in order to download a file strikes me as a bit gross.
throwaway15968 3y ago
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.
- computerdork 3y ago
  Best of luck, hope it all works out!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- yuriks 3y ago
  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.
  - Insanity 3y ago
    These decisions take time to make. Not sure when the union efforts started though - but not sure how likely this would be as a result of those efforts..
    - docpop 3y ago
      Bandcamp workers voted in favor of a union in March 16th of this year. It was one year and a week after Epic acquired the company. It's impossible to know what Epic is thinking know, or even when they bought BC, but 6 months sounds like how long it would take to sell Bandcamp off as a retaliation for unionizing.
  - throwaway15968 3y ago
    I don't think so. Epic also spun off SuperAwesome today, who are not unionized.
  - notatoad 3y ago
meindnoch 3y ago
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
- doublerabbit 3y ago
  Greetings and thank you for expressing your valued concern. We wish to emphasize our commitment to customer feedback in our ongoing enhancements. Allow us to assure you that you will enjoy our latest AI music generation suite as well as an cutting-edge state-of-the-art next-generation AI album cover generator. In tandem with these remarkable enhancements, we will be sprucing our algorithms allowing you to expand your ears to the emerging artists at the forefront of the industry. Furthermore, we are introducing a suite of premium subscription options, enriched with the ability to curate offline playlists, meticulously optimized at a pristine bit-rate of 32kbps. Drawing inspiration from the insights garnered from record labels these enhancements epitomize our pioneering advancements, we eagerly anticipate your enthusiastic feedback of these remarkable transformations. Sincerely ~ out of touch CEO
  - meindnoch 3y ago
    I chuckled. But you forgot audio watermarks and 1.5x price for FLAC.
  - climb_stealth 3y ago
    I appreciate the effort but this was terrifying to read. I think at this point I try to just not care anymore. Software and businesses that are currently great will go to shit and there's nothing I can do about it. Try to enjoy it whilst it lasts and don't get too attached or involved. Sincerely, someone who has been bitten too many times.
  - Dwedit 3y ago
    Surprisingly, 32kbps is actually somewhat listenable with Opus.
AdmiralAsshat 3y ago
Well, damn. I was just thinking that it had been over a year since Epic had purchased Bandcamp and hadn't fucked it up yet. Time to reset the panic clock!
ricoche 3y ago
I don't think Bandcamp will be the same again. (I don't mean this in a positive way)
- hatsix 3y ago
  as an employee of SongTradr, and customer of Bandcamp, I think it'll start the same for users, and get better for musicians
- vintermann 3y ago
  Why on earth would they be any better under Epic?
JohnFen 3y ago
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.
- hatsix 3y ago
  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.
  - colesantiago 3y ago
    famous last words... i'll check back in a year and see how bandcamp has been gutted by songtradr.
    - hatsix 3y ago
      From what I can tell, Epic did the gutting today, and it's left to us to pick up the pieces. It doesn't make sense to me, letting everyone go before the acquisition, why not let the acquiring company figure out what to do with the employees. It stinks of internal politics. Songtradr has done a good job with previous acquisitions, including mine. I'm no longer working on that product, but it's doing well. I don't agree with every decision being made for it, but I didn't before the acquisition, so... no big change there.
      - max_ 3y ago
        What product of yours was acquired? I would like to enter the Music services business and it would be great to connect with someone that has hands on experience.
        hatsix 3y ago
        https://pretzel.rocks https://pretzel.rocks. I wasn't a founder, but a long time... "employee". Music Services is a tough place to do product development in. Nobody is flush with cash, so all deals are percentage based... so you have to generate pass-through revenue. It's impossible to generate revenue from the general public, as they can get music from spotify/youtube for free, so you have to find a niche. I know several startups in the music space that are begging to be acquired because they didn't realize they needed pass-through revenue, they thought they could do what another company was doing, but cheaper, but the problem is that few established labels are willing to move off their old providers, as they value their industry relationships.
djxfade 3y ago
This scares me. I have a few tracks that I sell through Bandcamp. I hope they don't mess it up.
Hoasi 3y ago
Good things don't last.
jerhewet 3y ago
https://bandcamp.com/jerhewet https://bandcamp.com/jerhewet Very sad. Bandcamp was wonderful ... while it lasted.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  As of right now, it's the same as its always been. I understand the inclination to pessimism, and it may well be very well grounded, but we should perhaps try to be optimistic and aggressively activist at the same time.
cageface 3y ago
Now more than ever I think it's important to support small, independent music sellers. I buy a lot from Bleep and Boomkat but there are a lot of other good options too.
- kundi 3y ago
  Have you tried Formaviva.com?
Triphibian 3y ago
What would an employee-owned Bandcamp-like platform look like? Has anyone experimented with or attempted this model to prevent or stave off enshittification?
- caseyf 3y ago
  this exactly the type of platform where community ownership makes a tons of sense but I don't know if we've seen many examples of it actually working and resulting in something sustainable there are people working on questions like "what if the owners could have exited to their community instead of Epic" https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/exit-to-community https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/exit-to-community
- siquick 3y ago
  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/ https://resonate.coop/
  - squeaky-clean 3y ago
    Sounded cool at first to me, but no clear pricing means I'm out. Pay-per-play also feels worse than a monthly flat fee. Even if it's cheaper than a standard streaming service for me, that means I'll have second thoughts about leaving music on overnight while I sleep. Or if I don't really like the first few tracks from an artist I hear, is it worth it to keep digging through their discography and pay for songs I might not enjoy? > Pay 1/4 of a penny the first time you play, then a little more each time you replay. Then it’s yours forever. How much is "a little more"? Owning songs after you've listened to them enough is a nice idea, but since my library is about 20k songs, that's 28k dollars until I own them all, so it's not like I'd ever have hopes of not having to pay to listen anymore.
deleted 3y ago
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sensanaty 3y ago
And once again the money hungry sociopaths are going to ruin a perfect platform that does exactly what it's supposed to and not an iota more on chase of that elusive "infinite" growth, something that only children below the age of 5 and apparently people with MBAs believe to be something actually attainable.
anjel 3y ago
So THATS why they shadow banned me out of my account for having registered with an obfuscated email address after being cool with it for a dozen years.
- vintermann 3y ago
  Unlikely. There hasn't been time for any policy changes, and either way both Epic and this new buyer seem to be mostly about owning and less so about controlling.
dools 3y ago
It turns out the real songs being traded were the songs uploaded to Bandcamp along the way
justinclift 3y ago
On a related note, GUNSHIP's new album releases on Bandcamp later today: https://gunshipmusic.bandcamp.com/album/unicorn https://gunshipmusic.bandcamp.com/album/unicorn
kundi 3y ago
I’m affiliated with Formaviva team behind Formaviva.com, which is a promising Bandcamp alternative for electronic music. There are a couple of differences with Bandcamp, I would invite independent music lovers to check it out
rendall 3y ago
> 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.
- davidgerard 3y ago
  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.
  - vsnf 3y ago
    The large orchestral scores of many games certainly have deep ties to classical. Parts of the Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dark Souls, etc. But, and this is likely obvious to all involved but said for posterity anyway, not all game music is classical derived. Metroid Prime is electrosynth, Paper Mario is pretty jazzy, and Persona is supremely jazzy with dashes of rock.
    - davidgerard 3y ago
      of course. But cut scenes with orchestral instruments (even synthesized as they frequently are) are soundtrack music in classical style. That's the stuff I mean.
- vintermann 3y ago
  Well, I'm already annoyed that Spotify thinks that because I listened to music that was used in a game once, I must love game soundtracks in general. I'm pretty sure they'd annoy even more people if they thought, "Oh so you liked Wagner, you must love Zelda".
zimpenfish 3y ago
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.

333 points by davidgerard 3y ago

> 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?

deleted 3y ago
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7373737373 3y ago
Is there a list of organizations/platforms, like lichess.org that have/will never sell out?
- dylan604 3y ago
  how can you have a list of something like "will never"? a list of people claiming "will never" but never is a really really long time, and nobody can predict the future.
- tmountain 3y ago
  How could someone predict that? What litmus test could possible evaluate organized groups of humans resistance to greed?
  - 7373737373 3y ago
    Lichess, legally, is now a charitable organization https://lichess.org/terms-of-service https://lichess.org/terms-of-service
    - derstander 3y ago
      > Lichess, legally, is now a charitable organization I’m not saying Lichess will do something like this, but have you heard the saga of the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM)? It grew out of the University of Michigan — as a non-profit. Its president and board spun off a for-profit subsidiary owning the majority of its work, people, and assets and leaving a small fraction for the non-profit. Then, the for-profit entity was bought by a succession of other entities: Veridian, General Dynamics, and now MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates. I only learned of this while working with a graybeard from the original ERIM during their General Dynamics days — he was still sore about it. So never doubt a president/ceo and board if they’re really determined in going for-profit! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Research_Institute_of_Michigan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Research_Insti...
      - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
        > working with a graybeard This language is offensive (to me [0]) and sexist. Feel free to use it if it really floats your boat, but you could get the same effect without the implicit sexism just using "oldster". You could also say "older colleague", or even just "person". [0] and I don't even have a beard
        jprd 3y ago
        Thank you for sharing your feelings on this one, I hadn't heard of "graybeard" categorized that way by anyone before, though I can see your point-of-view and respect it. That being said, if the person was an actual human being, and subsequently had a graybeard (as I do!) - would that still be offensive? I don't intend to be combative, simply trying to learn!
        PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
        If you really feel that they color and presence of their facial hair was the best way to describe whatever it was that felt relevant to mentioning them, I can't really call that offensive. But the term "graybeard" is known in these circles as a reference to an older, always male, programmer. What actually matters is that they've been around the block enough times to understand (for example) that Rust probably will not solve every programming issue known to current programmers. Their gender and facial hair status is not really relevant. "Corner office grump" would be another term that I'd find entirely acceptable: non-gendered, unconcerned with physical appearance, but encapsulating much the same sort of personality that "graybeard" is attempting to evoke.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > How could someone predict that? Sell the service to users and re-launch as a co-operative.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      That wouldn't be a guarantee, though. I've seen businesses do that and years later go down the bad road anyway.
- rectang 3y ago
  I'd cite the Apache Software Foundation. * Unlike many other tech foundations, it's a 501(c)(3) charity, which dramatically limits the ability of industry titans to buy influence — since donations are tax deductible and thus cannot be used to unduly advantage any commercial entity. * The Board of Directors is elected by the "Membership", which is primarily comprised of individuals who have contributed the most towards ASF projects. It's a sort of co-op structure which ensures that the org stays aligned to the interests of certain stakeholders. (FWIW I used to be very involved at the ASF but have not been active for several years.) I've often wondered whether an analogous charitable organization owned by musicians could slot into music distribution, in the space of DistroKid / TuneCore / CDBaby — handling royalties, QC'ing releases, and bargaining with audience-facing distributors like Spotify, Amazon, Apple, etc.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    It can work and there are some organizations run that way. But just because something is a charity with a Board of Directors doesn't mean it can't be looted in various ways. It's happened before and will happen again.
- Mistletoe 3y ago
  It’s a very short list. Patagonia is on it. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate-philanthropy-chouinard.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate... https://hbr.org/2022/10/what-happens-when-a-company-like-patagonia-becomes-a-nonprofit https://hbr.org/2022/10/what-happens-when-a-company-like-pat...
- Nemo_bis 3y ago
  Check the International Cooperative Alliance. There's a list of national federations and you can find coops from there. https://www.ica.coop/en https://www.ica.coop/en
wnevets 3y ago
> If they're profitable then why do we need to play these games? Because that isn't enough we must have infinite growth.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  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."
  - lazide 3y ago
    You’d need to fix the tax code for that to work. Good luck getting that by Congress anytime soon!
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      For sure. "double taxation of dividends" isn't something that gets Democrats' blood racing. However, most of the HN discussion on issues like this is for things that'll never happen, so I don't see any difference.
      - lazide 3y ago
        It isn’t even that per-se. It’s treatment of dividends as income vs long term capital gains. Very, very different tax rates and degree of flexibility re: when you’d get taxed.
        AlbertCory 3y ago
        Right. And that leaves out that the company's already paid taxes on them.
        lazide 3y ago
        Correct, that is just the icing on top.
daydream 3y ago
> Bandcamp is good, it’s profitable and sustainable and it basically works. What's the source for the profitability claim?

slg 3y ago

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.

rodgerd 3y ago
Turns out that growth based on an assumption that your model of "slot machines for children" is not infinitely exponential and cannot subsidise "free games on PCs to compete with Steam while trying to dictate to Apple how they build their products".
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- spywaregorilla 3y ago
  Epic stopped selling lootboxes a couple years before grabbing bandcamp.
happymellon 3y ago
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.
- epolanski 3y ago
  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?

mgkimsal 3y ago

> Songtradr is talking up using its licensing prowess to give opportunities to Bandcamp artists — including licensing on Epic games. So... Epic sells bandcamp, a profitable business unit, to another entity which will then sell bandcamp assets back to ... Epic. ?? And Epic's competitors. Why would Epic go out of its way to support a company that is supporting its competitors?

codetrotter 3y ago
If they had plans to use Bandcamp for Epic assets, did it work? If not then I guess that’s a good reason to sell it to someone else.
davidgerard 3y ago
(author here) I'm assuming because sync rights are complicated, and Epic didn't quite realise how complicated. But Songtradr literally does rights as its main business. So this would work like Epic outsourcing it to a specialist, with an extra step. I'm still boggling that Epic thought tiny independent record labels would be good for pressuring the union to stop. Tiny labels these days tend to be set up by musicians who work too hard and who likely have close personal knowledge of working shitty jobs. Epic really had NO IDEA.
- hatsix 3y ago
  I think you're exactly right. Epic thought that buying a music company would let them acquire what they needed to do sync... but sync doesn't matter for Bandcamp, so it was hard for them to align. (while I work for SongTradr, I know nothing of the acquisition, so this is just speculation)
  - vintermann 3y ago
    Just hypothetically, if I wrote a Minecraft mod that replaced the in-game music with music from a streaming service (to be clear, one the user would need to have a subscription for, and authorize via the streaming service's OAuth API)... How sued would I get?

thirteenfingers 3y ago

And I literally just dropped my album this afternoon. I don't know whether I should be worried now.

codetrotter 3y ago
Do you have a link to the album?

manicennui 3y ago

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.

izzydata 3y ago
You don't trust a company that is trusted by Heineken? But for real. What kind of company needs to list a bunch of random companies and say they are "trusted by" them. If you need to tell me how trusted you are then I really don't trust you.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Indeed. As a wise man once told me... never trust anyone who says "trust me".
hatsix 3y ago
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 https://pretzel.rocks, which is how I joined the company). We support the artists by finding diverse ways for them to monetize their music. I've purchased a dozen albums on Bandcamp. All of the artists are already on pretzel (our content acquisition team works hard, especially on internal referrals), but I look forward to simplifying the process down to a simple click (right now it's DDEX and spreadsheets) I'm not a fan of our marketing, but it's more aimed at content licensees, not licensors.
- dools 3y ago
  You guys might be interested in this company: https://leveltwo.com.au 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.

sparrish 3y ago

Bandcamp employees unionized and Epic couldn't get rid of it fast enough. Can't let that cancer spread to the game devs, oh no!

meowtimemania 3y ago
did they unionize while at epic?
- input_sh 3y ago
  Yes, earlier this year. Epic purchase was early last year.

lucasgonze 3y ago

Epic owning Bandcamp never made sense. Getting Bandcamp off the books is likely to make the business look better to investors.

samtheprogram 3y ago
Bandcamp is profitable. How would selling at what's likely a loss from their purchase price going to look good to investors?
- bensecure 3y ago
  If they paid more for it than its worth, than they lost money the instant they bought it. If they sold it to a company that thought it could increase the value of bandcamp by owning it, then they might have gotten more for it than it was worth when they owned it, hence increasing their own value (or at least making a valuation which was previously potential concrete).
- bombcar 3y ago
  Investors like to see a company buying up tangentially related businesses, it's good for business! Investors like to see a company divest themselves of non-core-competency sections of its portfolio, it's good for business! Investors are sheep.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lucasgonze 3y ago
  I'm not an accountant, but I know enough to have a sense of much "creativity" is possible. The purchase price might be in the past, while costs are ongoing. Yes there would be a markdown from purchase to sale, but that's a different line item from the annual run rate.

Kye 3y ago

I don't know who needs to hear this, but you can download all the music you uploaded by starting a draft of a Bandcamp subscription service (after buying something to create an account and profile if you don't have one). All your albums will be added to your personal collection. I suggest FLAC. edit: Magic trick: open one (1) album. Change it to FLAC. Download. Now FLAC is default for the others you open.

ye-olde-sysrq 3y ago

I've posted something to this effect before but I'll post it again. I'm terrified someone is going to enshittify bandcamp. I used to be a huge what fan, primarily for discovery. Never would've known I liked atmospheric black metal if not for them. When they closed, I didn't really have enough "in" in the scene to know where other refugees went, so I just shopped around for anywhere else that would let me get "real" (in the what sense of real - decent encodes from raw source material that have the full spectrum and aren't just FLAC encodes of "high quality" mp3's). I don't pretend to be able to hear the difference, but I like it for archival purposes. I have plexamp transcode the audio anyway when I'm on mobile. Turns out most people don't give a shit so most places don't offer flacs. Except bandcamp. Plus they pay artists fairly, which ended up being as important to me as the flacs as I came to support indie bands for whom selling on bandcamp was a huge lift. I like seeing CDs literally come from residential addresses in Sweden. I like supporting the random 1 dude making awesome metal out of his basement.

moab 3y ago
Check out https://rateyourmusic.com/ https://rateyourmusic.com/ which is good for discovery, e.g., https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/atmospheric-black-metal/ https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/atmospheric-black-metal/ and the all-time lists: https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time/g:atmospheric-black-metal/ https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time/g:atmosp... Users also make wonderful charts on this website. also, hello from a fellow what refugee!
- xrd 3y ago
  I'm very happy you posted this, the information here is really interesting. Thank you.
  - moab 3y ago
    I'm glad you found it useful :-) The other useful resource I will mention is "soulseek" (https://www.slsknet.org/news/ https://www.slsknet.org/news/) which is basically old-school direct downloads, and includes a lot of obscure music that you won't find on AppleMusic/Spotify. Happy trails!

Modified3019 3y ago

Make sure to archive your bandcamp collection, which you can do with the following script: https://github.com/easlice/bandcamp-downloader 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 https://github.com/easlice/bandcamp-downloader/issues/21 You should always archive your collection anyways. One negative thing about bandcamp is that artists/labels/bandcamp can remove anything at anytime for any reason, so things you paid for can straight up disappear. This was very disappointing to discover. Note that sometimes things are set as hidden, rather than outright removed. This info may be outdated, as the relevant support page seems to gave changed from the last time I looked at it. 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. I’m happy enough to hand artists money if it’s easy and I can archive a lossless copy, but if they start fucking around with things, I’ll go right back to doing what I was before. 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.

deleted 3y ago
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Wowfunhappy 3y ago
> 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 status is on Mac nowadays), which kind of sucks.
- eindiran 3y ago
  I have also purchased music on Amazon and let's not pretend its "full on downloads", Amazon has V0 MP3 only iirc and Bandcamp offers ever format under the sun including FLAC and ALAC. Don't know about Apple because iTunes doesn't have Linux support and the whole setup of downloading an app in order to download a file strikes me as a bit gross.

throwaway15968 3y ago

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.

computerdork 3y ago
Best of luck, hope it all works out!
deleted 3y ago
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yuriks 3y ago
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.
- Insanity 3y ago
  These decisions take time to make. Not sure when the union efforts started though - but not sure how likely this would be as a result of those efforts..
  - docpop 3y ago
    Bandcamp workers voted in favor of a union in March 16th of this year. It was one year and a week after Epic acquired the company. It's impossible to know what Epic is thinking know, or even when they bought BC, but 6 months sounds like how long it would take to sell Bandcamp off as a retaliation for unionizing.
- throwaway15968 3y ago
  I don't think so. Epic also spun off SuperAwesome today, who are not unionized.
- notatoad 3y ago

meindnoch 3y ago

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

doublerabbit 3y ago
Greetings and thank you for expressing your valued concern. We wish to emphasize our commitment to customer feedback in our ongoing enhancements. Allow us to assure you that you will enjoy our latest AI music generation suite as well as an cutting-edge state-of-the-art next-generation AI album cover generator. In tandem with these remarkable enhancements, we will be sprucing our algorithms allowing you to expand your ears to the emerging artists at the forefront of the industry. Furthermore, we are introducing a suite of premium subscription options, enriched with the ability to curate offline playlists, meticulously optimized at a pristine bit-rate of 32kbps. Drawing inspiration from the insights garnered from record labels these enhancements epitomize our pioneering advancements, we eagerly anticipate your enthusiastic feedback of these remarkable transformations. Sincerely ~ out of touch CEO
- meindnoch 3y ago
  I chuckled. But you forgot audio watermarks and 1.5x price for FLAC.
- climb_stealth 3y ago
  I appreciate the effort but this was terrifying to read. I think at this point I try to just not care anymore. Software and businesses that are currently great will go to shit and there's nothing I can do about it. Try to enjoy it whilst it lasts and don't get too attached or involved. Sincerely, someone who has been bitten too many times.
- Dwedit 3y ago
  Surprisingly, 32kbps is actually somewhat listenable with Opus.

AdmiralAsshat 3y ago

Well, damn. I was just thinking that it had been over a year since Epic had purchased Bandcamp and hadn't fucked it up yet. Time to reset the panic clock!

ricoche 3y ago

I don't think Bandcamp will be the same again. (I don't mean this in a positive way)

hatsix 3y ago
as an employee of SongTradr, and customer of Bandcamp, I think it'll start the same for users, and get better for musicians
vintermann 3y ago
Why on earth would they be any better under Epic?

JohnFen 3y ago

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.

hatsix 3y ago
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.
- colesantiago 3y ago
  famous last words... i'll check back in a year and see how bandcamp has been gutted by songtradr.
  - hatsix 3y ago
    From what I can tell, Epic did the gutting today, and it's left to us to pick up the pieces. It doesn't make sense to me, letting everyone go before the acquisition, why not let the acquiring company figure out what to do with the employees. It stinks of internal politics. Songtradr has done a good job with previous acquisitions, including mine. I'm no longer working on that product, but it's doing well. I don't agree with every decision being made for it, but I didn't before the acquisition, so... no big change there.
    - max_ 3y ago
      What product of yours was acquired? I would like to enter the Music services business and it would be great to connect with someone that has hands on experience.
      - hatsix 3y ago
        https://pretzel.rocks https://pretzel.rocks. I wasn't a founder, but a long time... "employee". Music Services is a tough place to do product development in. Nobody is flush with cash, so all deals are percentage based... so you have to generate pass-through revenue. It's impossible to generate revenue from the general public, as they can get music from spotify/youtube for free, so you have to find a niche. I know several startups in the music space that are begging to be acquired because they didn't realize they needed pass-through revenue, they thought they could do what another company was doing, but cheaper, but the problem is that few established labels are willing to move off their old providers, as they value their industry relationships.

djxfade 3y ago

This scares me. I have a few tracks that I sell through Bandcamp. I hope they don't mess it up.

Hoasi 3y ago

Good things don't last.

jerhewet 3y ago

https://bandcamp.com/jerhewet https://bandcamp.com/jerhewet Very sad. Bandcamp was wonderful ... while it lasted.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
As of right now, it's the same as its always been. I understand the inclination to pessimism, and it may well be very well grounded, but we should perhaps try to be optimistic and aggressively activist at the same time.

cageface 3y ago

Now more than ever I think it's important to support small, independent music sellers. I buy a lot from Bleep and Boomkat but there are a lot of other good options too.

kundi 3y ago
Have you tried Formaviva.com?

Triphibian 3y ago

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

caseyf 3y ago
this exactly the type of platform where community ownership makes a tons of sense but I don't know if we've seen many examples of it actually working and resulting in something sustainable there are people working on questions like "what if the owners could have exited to their community instead of Epic" https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/exit-to-community https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/exit-to-community
siquick 3y ago
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/ https://resonate.coop/
- squeaky-clean 3y ago
  Sounded cool at first to me, but no clear pricing means I'm out. Pay-per-play also feels worse than a monthly flat fee. Even if it's cheaper than a standard streaming service for me, that means I'll have second thoughts about leaving music on overnight while I sleep. Or if I don't really like the first few tracks from an artist I hear, is it worth it to keep digging through their discography and pay for songs I might not enjoy? > Pay 1/4 of a penny the first time you play, then a little more each time you replay. Then it’s yours forever. How much is "a little more"? Owning songs after you've listened to them enough is a nice idea, but since my library is about 20k songs, that's 28k dollars until I own them all, so it's not like I'd ever have hopes of not having to pay to listen anymore.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sensanaty 3y ago

And once again the money hungry sociopaths are going to ruin a perfect platform that does exactly what it's supposed to and not an iota more on chase of that elusive "infinite" growth, something that only children below the age of 5 and apparently people with MBAs believe to be something actually attainable.

anjel 3y ago

So THATS why they shadow banned me out of my account for having registered with an obfuscated email address after being cool with it for a dozen years.

vintermann 3y ago
Unlikely. There hasn't been time for any policy changes, and either way both Epic and this new buyer seem to be mostly about owning and less so about controlling.

dools 3y ago

It turns out the real songs being traded were the songs uploaded to Bandcamp along the way

justinclift 3y ago

On a related note, GUNSHIP's new album releases on Bandcamp later today: https://gunshipmusic.bandcamp.com/album/unicorn https://gunshipmusic.bandcamp.com/album/unicorn

kundi 3y ago

I’m affiliated with Formaviva team behind Formaviva.com, which is a promising Bandcamp alternative for electronic music. There are a couple of differences with Bandcamp, I would invite independent music lovers to check it out

rendall 3y ago

> 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.

davidgerard 3y ago
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.
- vsnf 3y ago
  The large orchestral scores of many games certainly have deep ties to classical. Parts of the Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dark Souls, etc. But, and this is likely obvious to all involved but said for posterity anyway, not all game music is classical derived. Metroid Prime is electrosynth, Paper Mario is pretty jazzy, and Persona is supremely jazzy with dashes of rock.
  - davidgerard 3y ago
    of course. But cut scenes with orchestral instruments (even synthesized as they frequently are) are soundtrack music in classical style. That's the stuff I mean.
vintermann 3y ago
Well, I'm already annoyed that Spotify thinks that because I listened to music that was used in a game once, I must love game soundtracks in general. I'm pretty sure they'd annoy even more people if they thought, "Oh so you liked Wagner, you must love Zelda".

zimpenfish 3y ago

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.