It May Be Time to Backup Your Bandcamp Purchases

Bandcamp

David Rutland:

You can’t rely on other people or organisations to hold onto your media forever, and it’s a tired but true maxim that the cloud is just someone else’s machine.

If you’ve spent your hard earned cash supporting independent artists through Bandcamp, a series of ownership changes and layoffs suggest that now might be the best time for audiophiles to download their audio files to secure offline storage.

And:

While we’re not saying that Bandcamp is going to disappear into nothing (MySpace is still around after all), we think it’s perhaps prudent to download your albums from Bandcamp and store them offline. You never know – that’s all we’re saying.

The Bandcamp UI isn’t really designed with massive downloads in mind, and there are a lot of boxes to tick.

Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to download all of your Bandcamp music using the excellent Batchcamp extension which is available as both a FireFox addon, or as a Google Chrome extension.

They Can and Will Ruin Everything You Love

Bandcamp

Miranda Reinert, writing at Welcome to Hell World:

The companies that buy up sites like Bandcamp are interested in nothing except ensuring the executives’ pockets get lined appropriately. Growth is the only thing of interest. It’s the story of capitalism, but here, like with MySpace, it becomes a matter of cultural preservation. They can – and will – ruin everything you love and wipe it from existence. MySpace lost 13 years of music, photos, and videos. We can talk about what was going on on MySpace and interview people who were there, but the data being erased remains an unimaginable culture loss. It’s difficult to even know what has been lost due to the sheer incompetence. Right now there are brewing problems over at resale site and database, Discogs, due to increased fees as a result of a push for growth and in exchange for very little in terms of functionality. The data Discogs has – just like Bandcamp and just like what has been lost at MySpace – is irreplaceable and ever growing. So to have years of culture on Twitter – everything from the continued existence of legacy accounts to the basic usefulness of news organizations being verified – been ravaged by Elon Musk’s vanity. The internet is forever, until it’s ripped away by people who don’t add value to it.

Bandcamp Lays Off 50% of Workforce

Bandcamp

The Verge:

In an email to The Verge, Songtradr confirmed that 50 percent of Bandcamp employees have been extended offers to join Songtradr and reaffirmed from a previous statement the company’s commitment to keeping the Bandcamp experience the same.

Songtradr’s statement also confirmed that its purchase of Bandcamp had been completed, but it did not confirm if it would voluntarily recognize Bandcamp’s union that employees won earlier this year, despite pressure from employees and the Bandcamp community.

The union has responded.

Epic Ask Court to Keep Google from Removing Bandcamp

Bandcamp

Jay Peters, writing at The Verge:

Epic Games has filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to stop Google from removing independent music storefront Bandcamp from the Android app store — which Google has apparently threatened to do because Bandcamp is using its own billing system instead of paying Google an app store fee.

Bandcamp, which Epic acquired in March, has used its own billing system on Android since 2015, and was able to do so because of rules exempting digital music from having to use Google’s billing system, according to a blog post from Bandcamp co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond. “However, Google is now modifying its rules to require Bandcamp (and other apps like it) to exclusively use Google Play Billing for payments for digital goods and services, and pay a revenue share to Google,” Diamond says

Bandcamp is Joining Epic Games

Bandcamp

Bandcamp is joining Epic Games:

I’m excited to announce that Bandcamp is joining Epic Games, who you may know as the makers of Fortnite and Unreal Engine, and champions for a fair and open Internet.

Bandcamp will keep operating as a standalone marketplace and music community, and I will continue to lead our team. The products and services you depend on aren’t going anywhere, we’ll continue to build Bandcamp around our artists-first revenue model (where artists net an average of 82% of every sale), you’ll still have the same control over how you offer your music, Bandcamp Fridays will continue as planned, and the Daily will keep highlighting the diverse, amazing music on the site. However, behind the scenes we’re working with Epic to expand internationally and push development forward across Bandcamp, from basics like our album pages, mobile apps, merch tools, payment system, and search and discovery features, to newer initiatives like our vinyl pressing and live streaming services

🤯

Bandcamp Fridays Return on February 4th

Bandcamp

Bandcamp:

On the first Friday of the month since March of 2020, we’ve waived our revenue share to help support the many artists who have seen their livelihoods disrupted by the pandemic. Over the course of 17 days, fans paid artists and labels more than $70 million dollars, helping cover rents, mortgages, groceries, medications, and much more. If you’re among the nearly 800,000 fans who participated, thank you.

It will likely be several months before live performance revenue returns in full. So we’re going to continue doing Bandcamp Fridays in 2022, on February 4th, March 4th, April 1st, and May 6th. As always, isitbandcampfriday.com has the details.

‘Rock Show: A 20th Anniversary Tribute’ to Blink-182’s ‘TOYPAJ’

TOYPAJ Tribute

Releasing today is a great compilation of covers of Blink-182’s classic Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (TOYPAJ) album that has all Bandcamp proceeds from the record going directly to Mark Hoppus’ fundraiser for Cedars-Sinai blood cancer research. The compilation takes on thirteen of the Blink-182 songs found on the legendary pop-punk album, and features several scene favorites like The Republic of Wolves, ManDancing, and Out of Service. Please consider streaming the album and/or making a donation to the Cedars-Sinai blood cancer research fundraiser.

Read More “‘Rock Show: A 20th Anniversary Tribute’ to Blink-182’s ‘TOYPAJ’”

Bandcamp Expands Vinyl Pressing Service

Bandcamp

Bandcamp:

In 2019, we began rolling out the Bandcamp Vinyl Pressing Service to a small group of pilot artists. The service eliminates risk, since your fans’ orders—not you—finance the pressing. It eliminates hassle, since we coordinate production, ship the records to fans, fulfill digital, and handle customer support. It offers complete control, with the design and pricing up to you, and Bandcamp taking no ownership of the record. It maximizes your odds of success since we automatically notify your followers when you launch a campaign and they can easily use their saved credit card and shipping info. And most importantly, it works: Over the course of 50 successful pilot projects, we fine-tuned both the product and our production and fulfillment operations, and shipped 13,000 records to happy fans in 65 countries.

We’re now ready to offer vinyl pressing to the wider Bandcamp community and have just enabled and sent invites to 10,000 of you.

Live Streaming Comes to Bandcamp

Bandcamp

Bandcamp have launched a new live streaming service:

Today we’re announcing Bandcamp Live, a new ticketed live streaming service that makes it easy for artists to perform for and connect with their fans, and for fans to directly support the artists they love.

Bandcamp Live is simple to set up, even if you’ve never streamed before, and is fully integrated with the rest of Bandcamp. This has several benefits: we automatically notify your fans when you announce a show, it’s easy to buy a ticket since so many people already have a Bandcamp account and saved credit card, and new buyers become your followers (and have the option to join your mailing list). You can also showcase your music and merchandise right alongside your stream in a virtual merch table.

This looks really well thought out and integrated into the platform.