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

[Modified3019]

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 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 This info may be outdated, as the relevant support page seems to gave changed from the last time I looked at it.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.

[meeb]

Of a similar nature, my weekend project last week:

https://github.com/meeb/bandcampsync

Does much the same thing, but it unpacks the zips and tracks the directories. It can run as a docker container which syncs your collection on a daily timer. The use case is to download your purchases to local directories for use with Jellyfin/Plex/etc. You can just buy music and it'll appear on your local media server automatically within a day.

[Wowfunhappy]

> 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.

[Helithumper]

> 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.

Don't forget Qobuz: https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/shop

They not only have streaming plans but also let you buy the music files directly.

[pharmakom]

Things I have paid for have disappeared from store but I can still download them. Is there another level of “disappear”?

[Kbelicius]

> 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.

[m-p-3]

> 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.

That seems borderline illegal.. I can't imagine Valve removing a Steam game from someone's library if they already bought it without the Internet giving them a lot of bad press, they'll just delist the item from being purchased.

[raffraffraff]

Bandcamp, 7digital, rarely CDs (but I do still have a USB DVD recorder so I can still rip). And honestly, if I find that something is no longer available (like Spirogyra's "Bells, Boots & Shambles") and the composer is no longer living, I'll take it off something like YouTube if there's a decent quality rip available there. In some cases, original recordings aren't great quality anyway.

[cookiengineer]

In case you have troubles exporting cookies, I made a simple extension for that:

https://github.com/cookiengineer/me-want-cookies

(Uses Netscape cookie format)

[throwaway15968]

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.

[BLKNSLVR]

For what it's worth in this depressing and anxious waiting period: thank you for your efforts, and I sincerely hope you can continue as you have been.

As many other commenters have pointed out, Bandcamp is a great service. For me, it's really the only place I purchase music because of its commitment to paying artists fairly and offering FLAC downloads of the purchased music.

Again, thank you and good luck!

As an aside, I support unionisation precisely as the counterpoint it is intended to be, and any management actions against unionisation should be treated with suspicion and I generally look at that kind of behaviour as the base reason why unions need to exist in the first place.

(Both sides can be corrupt, but if there's only power on one side, then the corruption is both more likely to occur and increase).

I hope the unionisation thing is totally unrelated to this situation.

[hatsix]

I work at SongTradr. I know nothing about the acquisition, but can answer any other questions you have.

I feel like Bandcamp 100% fits better with SongTradr than Epic.

[yuriks]

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.

[mey]

When Epic was announced as a buyer, it kinda struck me that Valve would've been a better steward for the platform in the short term, with potential synergy in the long term considering how many OST they already sell for games.

[ace2358]

Thank you and everyone on the team. You changed music. Full stop. You gave us what we wanted. Full stop. We love you for your work.

[slantedview]

Best of luck! I hope it all works out for you and everyone there, but it might be prudent to be prepared either way.

[armini]

thanks for your contributions to bandcamp, I'd love to connect with you to explore opportunities working on www.kuky.com we're a platform that actually pays creators for their music.

[datavirtue]

Uh...demand negotiations and/or strike immediately. Like wtf!?

[musicale]

That's very discouraging. Bandcamp was great and I will be sorry to see it go.

As I see it maybe there is a void which will need to be filled.

[ip_addr]

Did something similar happen when Epic Games bought the company?

[computerdork]

Best of luck, hope it all works out!

[brianstorms]

Is Ethan Diamond still there?

[slg]

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]

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".

[happymellon]

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.

[sparrish]

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!

[manicennui]

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.

[JohnFen]

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]

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.

[mgkimsal]

> 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?

[davidgerard]

(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.

[BLKNSLVR]

The machine that goes 'ping'.

https://youtu.be/VQPIdZvoV4g?si=u7NPsnNYbqvemBgV

[codetrotter]

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.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

> 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?

[cageface]

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.

[Triphibian]

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

[kundi]

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

[thirteenfingers]

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

[lucasgonze]

Epic owning Bandcamp never made sense.

Getting Bandcamp off the books is likely to make the business look better to investors.

[AdmiralAsshat]

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!

[dools]

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

[justinclift]

On a related note, GUNSHIP's new album releases on Bandcamp later today:

https://gunshipmusic.bandcamp.com/album/unicorn

[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.

[rendall]

> 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.

[vintermann]

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".

[davidgerard]

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.

[ricoche]

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

[anjel]

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.