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Comment by iainctduncan | Hacker News Reader

Tangential question, has anyone actually noticed bandcamp get worse? We know they did big layoffs (along with uh... EVERYONE ELSE) and we know they axed a bunch of paid journalists (again, hardly uncommon), but as a frequent user I have not seen any negative change to me personally. Not saying they won't, lot's of acquisitions kill the golden goose, but so far I haven't noticed anything. Curious if others have.

I also really don't understand all the comments online as if the sale from Epic to Songtrader was a sale from the boy scouts to darth vader. Didn't Epic buy them as a pawn in a legal battle? The sale people should be grumbling about was the one to Epic... and the people they should be complaining about are the founders who sold. :-/

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Have continued using it as an artist and listener, and there's no way I'd have known anything changed from the site. They updated the terms of use, but only as necessary to reflect the change in ownership. And they are still doing Bandcamp Fridays, where the company gives up its cut on the first Friday each month, even though there was no promise or other indication they'd continue before the sale. I've seen rumors that support is getting worse, but only from reporters and not users, and it's a pretty easy site to use so I wouldn't think poor support is that much of a problem.

I'd rather Bandcamp be independent and am still upset they sold out, but I like Songtradr much better than Epic as an owner. Their main business is facilitating B2B sales, which I think of as the same category as what Bandcamp does. They don't own music (except incidentally, from acquisitions) and don't have ties to RIAA and major labels like Spotify does.

Main source for Songtradr info, although I've also done some outside reading: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37699552

I also haven't recognized any changes as a regular user and listener. I'm not an artist so I haven't uploaded any music and I do wonder if the artist experience has changed at all. I'm definitely bracing myself for change if / when it comes, however. I plan to keep using Bandcamp until then.

When Epic bought the platform I do remember a similar reaction from folks, along with confusion because why would a gaming company buy a music platform, and what kind of dumb sweeping changes were they going to make? The Songtradr acquisition at least makes more sense from an industry standpoint. Personally, I feel better with the platform in their hands rather than Epic's

I'm still very happy with the service; it's my preferred/only vendor for paid music downloads, and although I appreciate and use the streaming available in the app, at the end of the day, that could all disappear and I'd still have my purchases.

I know that's not the same for artists who have made more of an investment in it, promoted their bandcamp.com URLs and all, but as a consumer I'm content to continue using it as long as it delivers value to me, and cease using it when it does not.

Only two things I've noticed get worse as a buyer so far:

- Virtually immediately following the Songtrader acquisition using the credit card checkout began giving 'security code mismatch' errors. This is a false positive and clicking the 'Complete purchase' button about a minute later is the workaround I've been using since. I'd never experienced the error in the years prior and this has been tried with multiple different cards.

- There's no longer a live ticker on the home page showing the latest track/album purchases around the world.

> - There's no longer a live ticker on the home page showing the latest track/album purchases around the world.

Still there for me.

Hmm, checked in a browser with no cookie restrictions and indeed it is. All JS is enabled either way but I only allow first-party domain cookies (ticker used to be fine like this but at least I know it's just a cookie thing now).

> but at least I know it's just a cookie thing now

Nope, I also have cross-site cookies blocked and no issues with the ticker

Speaking as an artist who has six albums on BC, I haven't seen anything that makes me think it's gotten worse. People are still listening and BCs terms and conditions for me are unchanged. I still like what BC is about, and it's why I moved off of Spotify/Apple.

> We know they did big layoffs

Did we ever get clarification if that was blanket layoffs including their tech talent or they were mostly targeted cutting of secondary stuff like the journalistic wings?

Which, I mean it sucks for the writers that were there, but the journalism wasn't part of Bandcamp I was using, and I assume that's the case for most others. If the tech side is still generally intact? I would assume it would stay hunky dory.

Anyhow, Epic runs an e-store and generally treats its employees well and so I was fine with them taking it - there was synergy there.

Songtradr seems to be mostly about hoarding music rights, and is buying up music e-stores left and right, and did a large downsizing first thing after they bought Bandcamp. I think pessimism there made sense.

I don't understand how a video game company can be seen as more of a synergy than Songtradr. Given that songradr is in the digital rights exploitation business, I would guess they are more likely to be helpful to artists.

Don't forget, you can only upload original tunes to bandcamp (no covers). If songtradr wants to exploit those rights further (publishing licensing, better PRO work, etc), they have to pay the artists - which most artists would love.

> Don't forget, you can only upload original tunes to bandcamp (no covers).

What? Here’s a black metal cover of Hit me Baby (One more time): https://spider-god.bandcamp.com/track/baby

There are tons of covers on BC, never heard of that restriction.

I don't think it gets enforced much, but it's definitely there in the terms of service and help pages. You need to have written permission from the copyright holders. This is not the same as for a "regular" release, where one only needs explicit permission if it's the first recording of the piece. (After that you can record a cover under what's called a compulsory license). When recording a cover, the seller must pay mechanical royalties to the rights holder of the composition, which Bandcamp doesn't want to do (though maybe Songtradr has plans??) and we can assume artists won't bother. Because bandcamp is selling releases (rather than just streaming), mechanicals would apply.

Presumably they don't bother enforcing unless the rights holder makes a complaint.

See "are covers ok" here (this predated the Songtradr acquisition, FWIW) https://bandcamp.com/terms_of_use

Huh, interesting. Some quick googling suggests, this is relatively new, as a new law regarding streaming services came into effect in 2021, forcing streaming services to post, and bc didn't want the hassle. Before the law, they could require the band to have a streaming license in addition to the mechanical license.

Before the buyouts Songtradr didn't have consumer-facing e-stores -- the company was primarily B2B. Epic is a consumer company, like Bandcamp and 7Digital (the two e-music shops bought by Songtradr).

Apple sells all types of digital goods - movies, music, and games/apps.

Google used to sell the same 3 types of digital goods, until they decided selling music instead of renting it is an anachronism.

A true merger of Epic Store and Bandcamp would give Epic a similar kind of positioning as Google and Apple. Come to our e-shop to buy and download digital goods.

Which is what Epic said at the time but never did, right? Just seemed a little fishy that it was convenient for a legal battle to look like that was a plan, but then nothing came of it.

I still buy music there regularly and there is still plenty of new stuff being released. I really hope it doesn't go down the tubes, but so far so good for me.

Perhaps people in the electronic scene are wary after the experience of Beatport selling to SFX and rapidly starting to suck. But in that case Beatport had already been trying to reinvent itself to some degree for several years ahead of the sale. Bandcamp was different because it pretty much knew what it was going to be in the beginning and still is that now, so it seems like a sustainable business, as long as the new owners are willing to just let it be.

Bandcamp has remained great for me.

They've been gaining a reputation for banning artists/bands who are on the 'wrong side' of politics without notice or explanation.

I guess many people will cheer that on these days, though. Conformity is the new punk?

> artists/bands on the wrong side of politics

Any examples? Which side is "wrong"?

Only thing I know is that they won’t allow certain black metal band covers that have swastikas in their covers.

Which is perfectly fine IMO - that stuff can stay below ground.

Communist stuff gets a pass: https://nekrochaparro.bandcamp.com/album/hells-hammer-and-th...

Communist imagery isn't commonly associated with genocide in the US nor is it actively being used to promote genocide in the US, so this makes sense.

Are you really comparing communists with nazis?

Well, the phrase "I think that workers should own the means of production" indeed do not sounds as bad for me as "I think some ethnical groups are inferior and we should get rid of them". I perfectly understand banning the second phrase and not the first one.

Some examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/BreadTube/comments/11sqyue/tim_pool... https://www.davidrovics.com/bandcamp/ https://x.com/realbrysongray/status/1633550771907117056?s=46...

That second one is demonstrably searchable (he gets all of the top 5 results) and not banned. Maybe a bug, maybe an erroneous DMCA takedown that was reversed; who knows. Where's the political persecution?

As for the other guy, I'll just leave you his own video on the subject to help you decide on your own whether his story makes any sense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlmGvQln2Aw&t=835s (My opinion: he deleted his own tracks to generate a fake persecution controversy. The absolute lunacy of what appears to be a white guy insisting that they banned him because he's mixed-race is ... fascinating.)

Where are you hearing this? I actively follow all bandcamp news to an almost obsessive degree and have not heard a whiff of this. The explanation could easily be the delusions of someone who’s soothing their own ego after getting the boot for legit TOS violations.

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