Mastodawn

doephin Oct 4, 2023

oh god Songtradr’s takeover of #Bandcamp has ended up being way worse than anyone expected much more quickly. tl;dr: Songtradr isn’t honoring the union, has locked out employees from critical systems, and is basically trying to steamroll everyone in the handoff.

https://twitter.com/ethangach/status/1709588666216018411

At the very least this means this #bandcampfriday might not be so great, and most likely everything about bandcamp is going to shit very rapidly.

AmericanTruckSongs9 on X

Bandcamp employees say they've been locked out of critical systems and unable to do their jobs since Epic announced it was selling. This will hurt Bandcamp Fridays where 100% of the profits go to artists. They're bargaining over layoffs and severance. It's an epic mess.

X (formerly Twitter)

fluffy 💜Oct 4, 2023

I guess it’s time for me to finally write that pyBlamscamp GUI

fluffy 💜Oct 4, 2023

also maybe I should start self-hosting sockpuppet.us. It was already getting annoying how every sockpuppet.us URL gets redirected to the sockpuppet.bandcamp.com one now.

fluffy 💜Oct 4, 2023

Anyway if you want to show support for the #bandcamp union please listen to what the union themselves are saying: https://www.bandcampunited.org/show-support #BandcampUnited #BandcampFriday

Show your support

Bandcamp United wants fair, equitable, and sustainable conditions for all workers at Bandcamp. Here’s how you can help.

fluffy 💜Oct 5, 2023

Just a reminder: nobody is calling for a boycott, *especially* not the musicians who rely on Bandcamp for their income! Boycotts aren't automatically the right way to go for things like this.

*Especially* don't boycott on #BandcampFriday, the one day that the company doesn't take any money from album sales!

Swift Oct 5, 2023

@fluffy
Worth mentioning they're apparently on Mastodon
Support @bandcampunited !

Bandcamp has been really great, such a pity about the dodgy management.

apophis Oct 5, 2023

@fluffy no mention of boycott *yet*, good (someone just linked something good earlier)

⚧Kunikleto Celeste⚧Oct 4, 2023

Creature from the Blue Nagoon Oct 4, 2023

@fluffy We're gonna need some alternative that's for sure. 😭

fluffy 💜Oct 4, 2023

@bluenagoon yeah, I've been dual-releasing my stuff on both bandcamp and itchio for a while (see https://itch.io/c/2304651/albums) although that's incomplete and the UX isn't nearly as good as Bandcamp's.

Albums - Collection by fluffy

itch.io

pgcd Oct 4, 2023

and at night Oct 4, 2023

@fluffy Well, this is sucks

Unassuming Plural System Oct 4, 2023

We of the #VoidConspiracy took matters into our own hands and are now self-hosting our music and storefront.

It hurts discoverability but ultimately the only way to not be a victim of mega corporations fucking with our music and our sales is not to play their game.

We actually make more per sale this way as well.

Not sure if it helps, but I wrote a post on how to do this.

https://www.voidconspiracy.com/creating-a-self-hosted-music-storefront-using-aws-s3-and-sendowl/

Creating a Self-Hosted Music Storefront using AWS S3 and SendOwl – Jessica B. Kelly & The Void Conspiracy

fluffy 💜Oct 4, 2023

@jessica thanks, SendOwl looks pretty great. I can see a universe of using that along with pyBlamscamp for the encoding and previewing part, since one of the best features of Bandcamp is that they did an amazing job of encoding the files to begin with.

Unassuming Plural System Oct 4, 2023

I have no stake in SendOwl but have been amazed by the simplicity of it all. Artists don’t have to worry about Personally Identifying Data or storing any data at all except their own music. And if people don’t want to use S3, they can upload directly into SendOwl.

I’m more than happy to help twist the knife in Songtradr 🔪

fluffy 💜Oct 4, 2023

@jessica Does it support other backing storage, like plain ol' HTTP or B2 or whatever? I'd rather avoid a dependency on AWS.

fluffy 💜Oct 4, 2023

@jessica oh wait, they charge a monthly fee, that's a bit disappointing

Unassuming Plural System Oct 4, 2023

The only 'secured' non-SendOwl backing storage it supports is s3, but it can make a GET to whatever if you aren't worried about preventing unwanted downloads.

fluffy 💜Oct 4, 2023

@jessica I feel like I'd be better served by figuring out a better way of selling music via Gumroad and itch. I already have the itch process figured out, and all that's missing on Gumroad is the inability to put a preview player up there. (And now I wish Gumroad had an actual API for automated uploads and content formatting.)

fluffy 💜Oct 4, 2023

@jessica oh also does sendowl provide anything like a download library? or is it just a one-and-done file sending thing?

Unassuming Plural System Oct 4, 2023

@fluffy if you have the link, you can access your order history, downloading each file up to 10 times

fluffy 💜Oct 4, 2023

@jessica Hm, that's a pretty significant limitation compared to how Bandcamp does things, as well as the other digital storefronts. And you still have to manage your own encoding and preview hosting. I guess in terms of raw pricing it can be better than the other storefronts if you make enough monthly sales, though.

I'd just love to see something like bandcamp that's run like a co-op or the like. Resonate was promising but they basically imploded and never had a path to profitability.

PJ "Vote Green" Coffey Oct 5, 2023

@jessica @fluffy

Nice Post. Shame if someone were to stick # like
#Music #SelfHost #StoreFront #AWS #SendOwl #IndependentMusic #AntiCorpo

On it and boost discoverabilty see?

And then tagging a music auto boosting group? Just bang out of order.

Of course a real monster would also tag #LGBTQ and #Trans because everyone knows how much #Queer people hate independent musicians.

<Warning: this post may not be entirely serious. I do not normally talk like a gangster pastiche.>

fluffy 💜Oct 5, 2023

@Homebrewandhacking @jessica @music the main issue with sendowl is the same issue as any other random digital storefront: it only handles purchasing, not encoding. I don’t see sendowl as being any better than gumroad or ko-fi in that regard.

pyBlamscamp exists as a tool that handles the encoding but it’s not easy to start using. I should make a web thing for it. Although a local GUI makes more sense for everyone.

Ms Bailey, Sound Production Arc Oct 4, 2023

@fluffy AAAAAAAaaaannnnndddd that was the info I was hoping NOT to see.

Mike Loukides Oct 4, 2023

@fluffy Very sad. Bandcamp was the best thing happening in music.

Weedkiller Oct 4, 2023

@fluffy I’m fairly ignorant here, but is there a service like Bandcamp but with a collective ownership model? These days you need to assume any privately owned platform is on borrowed time no matter how nice they seem (they’re probably a sale away from self destruction), but if musicians want to make money in a similar way, and with their interests properly represented, I guess it would be possible to cut the middleman and set up something like that?

fluffy 💜Oct 5, 2023

@Weedkiller Unfortunately there hasn't been one that's had any sort of success. Resonate was trying to do a co-op for streaming music but they imploded and never had a path to profitability.

I'd definitely love to see one exist, though! I'm very seriously thinking about trying to build one, or at least the framework for something you can self-host along those lines.

fluffy 💜Oct 5, 2023

@Weedkiller and of course just after I wrote that, I see https://artisans.coop/

Artisans Cooperative

We are building a better handmade marketplace. We are a member-owned, member-run and member-benefiting co-op. We promote creativity, support artist livelihoods, and connect people through an equitable artistic community.

Artisans Cooperative

Lunaphied Oct 5, 2023

@fluffy what's the point of spending millions on a company if you can't waste that money by tanking it into the ground afterwards tbh

Arctic (back up - see pinned)Oct 5, 2023

@fluffy that really sucks

@fluffy Fuck. I really liked bandcamp :(

@[email protected]Oct 5, 2023

prob gonna skip Bandcamp Friday this week then and just get what I want from Discogs or wherever elsel. I did buy a vinyl through Bandcamp recently, if I knew that I would’ve gotten it used from Discogs :\

fluffy 💜Oct 5, 2023

@Flaky Nobody is calling for a boycott. Skipping #BandcampFriday only impacts the musicians who rely on Bandcamp for income. Bandcamp Friday is the best time to buy music because none of the money goes to the company.

@[email protected]Oct 5, 2023

It’s more a trust thing tbh? Even the tweet says so, Bandcamp Friday might be screwed to some extent with what’s going on.

fluffy 💜Oct 5, 2023

@Flaky it remains to be seen if it’ll happen yeah. But it’s premature to say to skip it entirely and even if bandcamp Friday doesn’t happen this month it’s not fair to the artists to boycott bandcamp at this point.

@[email protected]Oct 5, 2023

True. I did buy a vinyl through Bandcamp and I trust the artist to fulfill the purchase, but I hope Bandcamp doesn’t pull a Reddit.

fluffy 💜Oct 5, 2023

@Flaky incidentally vinyl is also not really that great for the musician due to the economics of it. Not that it’s bad to buy vinyl if it’s available of course! But it’s not as scalable or available for independent musicians.

fluffy 💜Oct 5, 2023

@Flaky there’s also a pretty good environmental argument against vinyl too

@[email protected]Oct 5, 2023

Good to know, thanks! I would actually buy digital FLACs or CDs (if it’s available, in case releases get pulled which I’ve had issues with), this was an exception since I really liked it + wanted to get it on a physical release.

fluffy 💜Oct 5, 2023

@Flaky Yeah if vinyl is available already and you want to have a physical keepsake of the music, it's totally fine to buy it! I'm just not a fan of a perceived notion that all "real" music should end up on vinyl (or even CD) to be worth considering purchasing.

I know a few folks who are like "Ooh I'd like to buy your music but only if you have it on CD or vinyl" and I'm like "Ooh sorry that's just not feasible for me to do"

@[email protected]Oct 5, 2023

yeah, that’s a very ignorant thing to say, that “real” music has to be physical. For me I like having the CD so if anything bad happens (service goes bankrupt, hard drive failure, etc.) I have that physical backup. I’ve had issues with 7digital pulling my purchases away (as well as a 10-download limit) as well as releases being pulled from Spotify. Bandcamp and I believe Qobuz don’t do this as far as I know.

fluffy 💜Oct 5, 2023

@Flaky Yeah I make sure I always have my entire digital music collection downloaded and backed up.

spherulitic Oct 5, 2023

@fluffy “not honoring the union” seems straight up illegal. I guess we’ll see what NLRB has to say.

Anthropy Oct 5, 2023

@fluffy I had kinda already expected bandcamp to implode at some point as soon as they got bought but it's still sad to see it now finally happen