bandcamp acquired by epic games?!

[auxien]

51 minutes ago, atypic said:

Another big Bandcamp Friday today

perhaps the last one too…who knows if Songtradr is going to keep them going into 2024. 

[ignatius]

1 hour ago, atypic said:

Another big Bandcamp Friday today

i made all my releases FREE/Pay what you want...  including sample library 

cleared off a few things from my wishlist too.. so, i'm stoked on having some new things i've been meaning to spend some time with.  

[toaoaoad]

On 12/1/2023 at 12:09 PM, auxien said:

perhaps the last one too…who knows if Songtradr is going to keep them going into 2024. 

Do we have any clues about this? I've been wondering as well.

Seems a number of artists are making a statement about the buyout by releasing stuff only on bandcamp fridays.

 I imagine if songtradr axes Bandcamp Friday they will lose a lot of artists altogether. Would be a pretty stupid move on their part imo.

 

[auxien]

33 minutes ago, toaoaoad said:

Do we have any clues about this? I've been wondering as well.

a few months ago Songtradr had a statement about Bandcamp Fridays for 2023, said something to the effect of 'look, we don't 100% own Bandcamp yet, everything is still happening so basically everything is running like Epic planned for Bandcamp Fridays for now, and we want to leverage the huge pool of artists for the future tho' ...obv that's my wording, but that was the tone i got from it. not too promising for keeping the status quo for things going forward, but it could retain some stasis if that seems monetarily beneficial.

37 minutes ago, toaoaoad said:

Seems a number of artists are making a statement about the buyout by releasing stuff only on bandcamp fridays.

yeah, that's been a trend since they started, but has gotten to be bloated with that. some labels opting NOT to release on BC Fridays just so they aren't lost in the crowd. after the Songtradr stuff a month or two back i dropped all my self-released stuff to free/PWYW just to maybe not be funneling a little money into this unknown corp's pockets (i'm a very very very small player tho, obv).

44 minutes ago, toaoaoad said:

I imagine if songtradr axes Bandcamp Friday they will lose a lot of artists altogether. Would be a pretty stupid move on their part imo.

it would just be returning to the pre-COVID times, which shouldn't be a big deal imo. if Songtradr kills BC Fridays going forward but keeps the current BC cut (on digitals they take 15% after payment processing fees) i'd be 100% okay with that. BC Fridays are a good, i try to do my purchasing then, but that rate of a cut is honestly quite fair. but also, there's MANY sales happening any random day, any random minute other than BC Fridays...Epic/Songtradr are making some amount of money on the regular. the problem is when they start looking at how to 'drive growth' or 'we COULD be making _____' or 'we need to pump numbers so we can sell this'. Bandcamp was a healthy, profitable internet business before Epic bought it. it can continue to be that way for years. it can't be a multibilliondollar Spotify competitor or whatever other BS Epic thought maybe or Songtradr's board might want.

i'm still holding out hope but....

[auxien]

Bandcamp Fridays update: email just went out about them continuing in 2024:

Quote

On most first Fridays of the month since March of 2020, we’ve waived our revenue share to provide additional support to the artists and labels who form the backbone of Bandcamp’s community and without whom we would not exist.

...

We’re going to keep a good thing going in 2024, and will hold the next Bandcamp Friday on February 2nd. We’ll share plans for the rest of the year soon.

some good news for Christmas. i'm still going to look at Songtradr cautiously, but this is at least a good sign

[purlieu]

It was probably in this thread that I asked if there were any alternatives to BC when the Epic buyout happened and there was nothing, so it's interesting to see that there are some around now. Although it'll take a big shift to get large numbers away from BC, I'll probably get my material on alternatives so I have options for the future. Songtradr obviously have vested interest in areas that go against a lot of what BC was about, but at the same time they might also be sensible enough to follow Epic and realise that it's so successful because of what it does, and not make (m)any changes. 

[toaoaoad]

Tone of the email is a bit condescending imo. And they're skipping january?

[auxien]

5 hours ago, toaoaoad said:

Tone of the email is a bit condescending imo. And they're skipping january?

the tone comes across as a bit matter of fact, which iirc is pretty common from Bandcamp communications like that, i don’t read any condescension in it. 

Bandcamp Fridays have regularly skipped a month (or two, maybe even three?) since they started doing them. there’s probably about 8-10 Bandcamp Fridays per year.

[toaoaoad]

Ok yeah I guess I'm just being a bit hyper vigilant of these guys. 

[ignatius]

14 hours ago, toaoaoad said:

Tone of the email is a bit condescending imo. And they're skipping january?

i think they skipped some months over the last year. i can't remember which.. could also be misremembering. 

[purlieu]

Been checking out some of the alternatives.

jam.coop seems to have a lot of potential, run as a cooperative with any potential future profits being shared with artists. Also very honest about the fact that it's all speculative, and the site is very bare bones at the mo, clearly just starting up. Will keep an eye on it, though.

Nina might be accepting proper currency but all releases are added to blockchain meaning you can't remove them once they're added. So that's a big no. Would love to know what their approach to copyright infringements is in that context.

Gumroad is already reasonably established for software, tutorials and other things. No direct music features, transcoding, etc. so you have to have all your files converted and tagged manually before adding. Also no streaming option, although you can embed YouTube videos of your music to preview. Has flexibility to do different versions of albums and stuff which is a plus, and by not being limited to music you can also sell various other stuff - written material, videos, etc. - through the same page, which has some potential. I've made one, anyway, so I have a non-Bandcamp backup.

Resonate is such a great idea, but looking at the forums it seems like it's on the verge of disappearing down the toilet, sadly.

Bandzoogle isn't free.

Rauversion and Faircamp seem to just be free store software, but obviously hosting is still required and costs money.

I have literally no idea what Funkwhale is.

[atypic]

Looking forward to another Bandcamp Friday

[auxien]

https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-fridays-update

this Friday another round

[ignatius]

28 minutes ago, auxien said:

https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-fridays-update

this Friday another round

cool.

buy my free stuff!

[Hugh Mughnus]

19 minutes ago, ignatius said:

cool.

buy my free stuff!

I’m on a budget I can’t lol

Edited February 29 by Hugh Mughnus

[atypic]

I'm not in a place to review/buy stuff today, but happy to see these keep rolling.