[HN Gopher] Faircamp is a free Bandcamp alternative
___________________________________________________________________
Faircamp is a free Bandcamp alternative
Author : Tomte
Score : 317 points
Date : 2024-01-25 13:04 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (wedistribute.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (wedistribute.org)
| gadders wrote:
| Anyone else think it said Basecamp at first?
| lawgimenez wrote:
| Same here. Imagine the horror of the 2 top dudes at Basecamp.
| siva7 wrote:
| Their customers don't give a shit about some open source
| alternative.
| WJW wrote:
| There's plenty of free Basecamp alternatives out there, but
| since they don't even come close to providing the same
| stability and polish none of them have a chance at unseating
| the original in the eyes of its core audience.
| KeyBoardG wrote:
| Yes, I was waiting to see a Basecamp alternative written in PHP
| :D
| ubertaco wrote:
| I mean, it's an alternative for Bandcamp's _software_. It's not
| an alternative for Bandcamp's _infra_, and that's a pretty
| significant cost-and-complexity center for a new band or solo
| artist that just wants their music out there for purchase.
|
| Still, I think getting viable alternative software is a huge
| checkbox on the path to getting good alternatives. Now there just
| needs to be an affordable hosting company that'll run Faircamp
| for up-and-coming artists.
| giovannibonetti wrote:
| Perhaps a P2P model would make the infra more affordable? You
| know, like when Spotify launched.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > Faircamp bills itself as "a static site generator for audio
| producers", but an easier way to understand it is this: it's a
| simple site that you can host yourself. Install some software on
| your server, point it at the folder of the music you want to
| sell, and your site's pages will build themselves.
|
| That "on your server" part is going to make is unsuited for
| 99.9+% of bandcamp artists, and speaking as someone who buys an
| awful lot of music on bandcamp, I would have some concerns as
| well. (Not least of which being that with bandcamp I can download
| purchased music years after purchase, even if artists have died
| or bands broken up, I wouldn't have that guarantee here).
| bee_rider wrote:
| Also Bandcamp already has my credit card.
| rglullis wrote:
| If only the US could ever leave the 19th century and allow
| instant wire transfers...
|
| Oh, wait. They did already!
|
| https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.h.
| ..
| bee_rider wrote:
| Huh, interesting. Did Faircamp implement some sort of
| payment system that works through FedNow? That's pretty
| neat if so.
| dangus wrote:
| There are a wide array of different payment preferences
| depending on the country.
|
| Bank transfer isn't universally the most popular method of
| e-commerce transactions. For example, PayPal seems to be
| the most overwhelmingly popular online payment method in
| Germany. In the UK, PayPal and debit cards are the leaders.
| Debit cards are also generally popular globally (a debit
| card isn't the same as a bank transfer).
|
| https://blog.2checkout.com/popular-online-payment-methods-
| gl...
|
| https://www.rapyd.net/blog/the-top-payment-methods-in-the-
| un...
|
| This speaks more toward someone like a musician needing a
| solution that has many payment options to appeal to a wide
| breadth of customers, not some kind of dig on US e-commerce
| and banking because "Europe does it better and the US is
| stuck in the 19th century."
| rglullis wrote:
| Paypal is the most popular method in Europe because they
| operate as a bank here, and therefore customers can make
| wire transfers to each other.
| terinjokes wrote:
| > Not least of which being that with bandcamp I can download
| purchased music years after purchase, even if artists have died
| or bands broken up, I wouldn't have that guarantee here
|
| Note that this isn't guaranteed, especially for smaller bands
| that get picked up by a label. Most of the time the label just
| makes the releases hidden, so they're no longer displayed
| publicly, but can still be downloaded. However, some labels
| delete the release instead, so it's no longer downloadable from
| your collection.
| drngdds wrote:
| Yeah, this is a risk.
|
| The best approach is to take advantage of the fact that
| Bandcamp lets you download everything and simply download
| everything you buy and keep backups (as you would with any
| other important data)
| RoyTyrell wrote:
| Yep exactly, that's what I do too. Download a lossless
| version and then use Bandcamp if I ever wanted to stream
| it. However I also host Navidrome (OSS streaming with a
| web-app) so use that 99.9% of the time I want to stream.
|
| Even if there aren't labels requiring artists to hide or
| delete music from Bandcamp, you never know if Bandcamp
| could just go down one day for financial reasons and then
| you're screwed.
| JohnFen wrote:
| This is the primary use case for Bandcamp for me -- it's
| one of the main ways I buy new music. I'm not interested in
| streaming services. Being able to buy (with most of the
| money going to the artist) and download lossless copies of
| albums is what I want.
| terinjokes wrote:
| Yep, I download the FLAC and always keep the original zip
| file, and back it up separately from the files I manage
| with beets. I playback the beets-managed files with
| Navidrome.
|
| Beets doesn't maange handle the extra files that the zip
| often includes, such as PDFs of linear notes, the sheet
| music I once found included, or band photos. Maybe someday
| I'll figure out a good archive for everything that isn't
| "the literal zip file".
| optionalsquid wrote:
| That "on your server" part also means that discoverability
| takes a massive nose-dive. Most of the music I've purchased on
| Bandcamp was discovered by following suggestions listed on the
| pages of albums I liked or by trawling through everything that
| shared tags with albums I liked. But that doesn't seem possible
| on Faircamp.
| slothtrop wrote:
| There are far more important/popular sources for
| discoverability than BC. Their UI is not great for that in
| the first place.
| lancesells wrote:
| I discover plenty through their blog posts and following
| labels that I like.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| The irony is that for this federated network to succeed, it
| probably needs a large-ish "commercial" peer which works
| similarly to how Bandcamp did.
| threeeebo wrote:
| afaik Bandcamp as a service to artists and consumers has not
| changed...yet.
|
| >With the recent sale of Bandcamp to predatory VC extractive
| vultures, and the main move to finalise that sale was to fire all
| the recently unionised staff
|
| I suppose the next move is to squeeze the artists, then the
| consumers.
| Mashimo wrote:
| > was to fire all the recently unionised staff
|
| Did they explicitly go after the unionized staff?
|
| Or do they mean they fired people, and a subset of them also
| recently unionized?
| bruh2 wrote:
| If I'm not mistaken, it's always the second option - it's
| illegal to fire someone for unionizing in most places
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| They fired 50% of the staff, which included 60% of the union
| (including the entire union bargaining team that was pushing
| for Songtradr recognition).
|
| The union filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations
| Board.
| 13781_throwaway wrote:
| Songtradr leaned heavily on keeping old-timers who were
| part of the core team with the most knowledge. The union
| was largely formed by the newest employees. You do the
| math.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Do you have a source for this?
| 13781_throwaway wrote:
| It's what I'd call a computed conclusion based on
| personal observation, unnamed shadowy figures, and
| William of Ockham. Put another way: none I'd name. Put
| yet another way: no.
| catapart wrote:
| Very awesome!
|
| Looks like with this making federation available there's just a
| need for someone to come in and set up a trustworthy portal that
| collects federated music and provides the customer (music
| purchaser) UX. Assuming they can find a way to federate the
| payments (skim a small fee for using the aggregator's payments,
| instead of direct linking to various musician's purchasing
| systems), this should make hosting the infra for a site like this
| manageable, based on the lower decentralized media.
|
| That's a long way to go to get to something that, in tandem,
| would be a 'bandcamp alternative', but I can't help but get
| excited for the small steps! They do often open doors for the
| bigger steps!
| btown wrote:
| The problems with aggregated payments go far beyond just
| ensuring someone can pay hosting and card processing fees. Who
| will take chargeback risk? Handle KYC for payouts (especially
| since many garage bands won't have business entities)? Handle
| fraud at scale, including fraud rings using your service to
| validate stolen credit cards?
|
| https://www.candyjapan.com/behind-the-scenes/candy-japan-hit...
| is an old (2015) but still relevant illustration of this.
|
| Centralizing payments requires human monitoring and capital
| cushions. With services like Stripe this can be cheaper, but
| still requires nontrivial resources.
| kevinsync wrote:
| Also IMO it would need to handle distributing royalties
| correctly, global tax remittance, etc.
|
| That stuff gets incredibly complicated, incredibly fast.
| catapart wrote:
| The "publisher" takes all of the financial risk. That's part
| of the deal. I would never use a website that said "you pay
| us, but if you have payment problems, you have to take that
| up with the product manufacturer". The aggregator has to take
| enough off of the payment in order to insure their business,
| just like they have to take enough off of the payment in
| order to afford any of their other capital (salaries,
| utilities, rent, etc).
|
| I'm assuming you have doubts about the practical feasibility
| of charging "that much". But it has, historically, been one
| of the best cost-to-compensation models ever created, with
| entire industries being built around enshrining an ever-more
| predatory pricing structure that funnels more and more of the
| product profit to a small council of investors.
| thejdsessions wrote:
| I'm a user, I use it to publish my music, and it's awesome.
| brudgers wrote:
| I think it's probably a meaningful alternative to the degree a
| musician's audience and potential audience will use it.
|
| I mean, a friend's living room is an alternative to Madison
| Square Garden when a musician's ambition is noodling around for a
| few friends.
| whyoh wrote:
| Bandcamp alternatives have existed for a while. Not just server
| software, but complete stores. The challenge lies in convincing
| people (buyers and sellers) to start using them.
| slothtrop wrote:
| It's a pretty short list for those who can offer what BC does.
| whyoh wrote:
| That's because BC "won" and took over the indie market, so
| now they can afford to offer additional features and
| services. And, frankly, I'm not sure that this market is big
| enough to accommodate more players. Even BC is small compared
| to the likes of Spotify, Youtube or Apple.
|
| But if you just need to easily sell your music in digital
| format (which is what Bandcamp started as), there are
| options.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Meanwhile any site with a functional search mechanism would
| be offering _more_ than what Bandcamp offers.
| romwell wrote:
| >Meanwhile any site with a functional search mechanism
| would be offering more than what Bandcamp offers.
|
| Not to the artists who put their music there.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Can you share some of them?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I can think of one: https://www.hdtracks.com/
| jzb wrote:
| Kinda?
|
| Looks like I can buy albums there. Check. Can I listen to a
| full album? It seems like you only get samples.
|
| It also is very sparse and doesn't really give a great band
| presence. I'm guessing the selections are populated by
| labels rather than artists?
|
| It doesn't do much at all for recommendations.
| jasode wrote:
| _> I can think of one: https://www.hdtracks.com/_
|
| Platforms like HDtracks and Qobuz are _not_ a "Bandcamp
| alternative" when considering the business reasons that
| artists use Bandcamp.
|
| Bandcamp lets small independent artists _upload their own
| songs without a distributor middleman_.
|
| In contrast, HDTracks only gets music from distributors
| like established record labels. Example discussion when
| somebody asked about it:
| https://gearspace.com/board/career-work/1358709-how-do-i-
| get...
| plz-remove-card wrote:
| https://ototoy.jp
| xrd wrote:
| This is great, I wish there was a way to see genres so I
| can filter by jazz.
| plz-remove-card wrote:
| I've found a lot of albums (lossless) that I can't find
| anywhere on OTOTOY the only catch is I have to use a VPN
| with a Japanese IP address to checkout (the don't care
| about the billing address so works fine otherwise)
|
| The main pain however is that some labels (usually Sony)
| stubbornly don't allow lossless downloads...
| mr_sturd wrote:
| "Jazz/World"
|
| https://ototoy.jp/top/gjw
| whyoh wrote:
| https://indiehd.com would be my go to in terms of
| accessibility and fair pricing/costs.
| chrislo wrote:
| There's also https://jam.coop (aiming to be a co-operatively
| owned/run bandcamp alternative)
| nerdponx wrote:
| What ever happened to Purevolume anyway? Killed by Myspace?
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| "Radio Free Fedi" is mentioned in the article; if you're curious
| they're a community-driven Internet radio station "celebrating
| sound, agency and discovery supporting independent fedi artists."
| You can find them at https://www.radiofreefedi.net/
| solarkraft wrote:
| It looks great and all. And it probably serves one use case that
| Bandcamp serves.
|
| But for me Bandcamp is primarily a collection of music I like,
| like other people would have a shelf with CDs or Vinyls. This
| doesn't really do that. "Just install it on your server" probably
| sounds a lot harder to an average musican than to an average
| techie as well (sure, there's overlap, but it's not the same).
| rglullis wrote:
| So, not to hijack the thread, but just last week I've added
| funkwhale to the list of supported services on communick at
| https://communick.stream. For $29/year I'm offering 250GB of
| space for users to upload their own songs, but all of that would
| be on private libraries - i.e, people can not publicly share
| songs they do not own copyright.
|
| The next step would be to let musicians put their own songs in
| public libraries and let them choose between two models:
|
| - sell direct to consumer
|
| - pay-for-access (Patreon style). The "twist" I'm thinking would
| be that customers could define a global fixed monthly amount, and
| split to the musicians according to how much they listen.
|
| My idea would be to take a flat fee from musicians just for the
| service, no commission on sales, etc. Would that be a good model?
| Also, how does one go on about to break the network effects of
| these?
| diggan wrote:
| > Also, how does one go on about to break the network effects
| of these?
|
| Curation. Bandcamp isn't what it is because of the technology,
| the money, the business model or whatever. It is (was?)
| Bandcamp because of the curators, the community and the humans
| behind it.
|
| Find the best way of replicating those things and you have a
| chance at least :)
| rglullis wrote:
| I get that, but your answer sounds a bit circular: "to break
| the network effects, first establish a community".
|
| The idea of using the Fediverse is precisely to leverage the
| existing network and to let people use my service even if its
| own "local" community hasn't reach critical mass yet. Maybe
| the question is how I can reach these people now?
| bruh2 wrote:
| I host a Faircamp instance for a couple of friends and I. It's
| lovely, we upload songs via Nextcloud and a janky script I wrote.
| You might wanna check out the Faircamp webring as well:
| https://webring.key13.uk/
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| More choices are always welcome, but the strength of Bandcamp
| primarily was the zeitgeist and the culture around it, not the
| tech.
|
| The Bandcamp fridays, the curation, the interviews, the
| selectors, the IRL presence at Record Fairs or at events like
| Record Store Day...Considering the strong communal experience it
| was, the idea of federating (and further distancing) the space
| between the artists and the audience sounds more like a
| downgrade.
| jzb wrote:
| Yep. Just as anybody can stand up a social media platform clone
| - the value is in the network effect and content on the
| platform. Because of the content and discovery features on
| Bandcamp, I've discovered several bands I'd never have heard of
| otherwise.
|
| If you're leaving hosting and promotion entirely as an exercise
| to the band/artist, you're not meeting the actual need.
| Bandcamp (mostly) met the need of artists _and_ music
| enthusiasts. Unfortunately it 's now in the hands of an entity
| that seems to care about neither.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| and that network effect is what allows for enshittification
| to proceed unabated.
|
| We're watching that start right now with AI. which is
| probably the real danger of AI: locked in work flows,
| exploited by capitalism to leverage shitty outcomes as a way
| to drive up profits and downgrade outcomes.
| nusl wrote:
| Well, you need the network effect but I don't think the
| effect itself causes enshittification. The constant need
| for massive growth and big numbers to sate investors causes
| companies to drift from their original mission and morph
| into something soulless and purely driven by profit,
| despite sometimes already being wildly profitable. There is
| irony in me saying this on HN but the longer-term effects
| of VC money really really ruins good things.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| the network effect _allows_ enshittification, to the
| point that it's almost entirely why enshittification is
| allowed. The momentum into a ecosystem is much different
| than coming out. Once the Business realizes they've hit
| that "event horizon" enshittification necessarily flows
| from pure capitalism.
|
| Sure, we could redefine the physical basis of this
| blackhole of the internet metaphor via regulations, but
| corporations are not governments and do not need to
| follow any specific multifaceted approach to long term
| vision.
| rdn wrote:
| To me the strength is the ability to buy the music files
| directly without hurdles and without being trapped in something
| like iTunes
| jjulius wrote:
| "Was"?
| nusl wrote:
| Still possible but the company itself is being sold and
| resold, now in the hands of an actor that seems to conflict
| with its mission, unless I am mistaken
| jjulius wrote:
| Hardcore Bandcamp user here - it's been sold, but other
| than layoffs, the user experience has remained
| essentially exactly the same. Especially with regards to
| OP's point about buying the files directly without
| hurdles. Songtradr has yet to announce any future changes
| to the platform as well. For all intents and purposes,
| it's the same as it ever was.
|
| Hence my confusion over the use of the word "was".
| nusl wrote:
| Let's hope that it continues to be so, and that there
| aren't internal changes ongoing to impact this
| de_nied wrote:
| Doesn't everyone just rip now with youtube-dl/yt-dlp?
| httpsterio wrote:
| can't get flacs from YouTube and some people also want to
| support the artists.
| bratwurst3000 wrote:
| Can get flac from tidal or qobuz. I buy vinyls and go to
| concerts. That's how I support musicians. Bandcamp is
| very nice imho
| geden wrote:
| And buy vinyl, CDs and t-shirts etc.
| tmiku wrote:
| I always thought audio quality was something for snobs,
| but recently my car's aux input died and I burned a few
| CDs with yt-dlp rips and I get it now. Youtube's 128kbps
| makes me wince on some of the quieter recordings, even
| compared to my previous setup of Spotify over a
| lackluster LTE connection.
| letitbeirie wrote:
| I managed to collect a rather massive digital music
| collection when p2p was en vogue.
|
| I still listen to it every day because it's highly
| curated and has tracks unavailable on any service, but
| quality-wise it definitely feels like I'm plumbing the
| depths of a DVD collection when everyone else is watching
| Netflix.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| It _might_ be relevant that you 're burning them at a set
| volume, and your only way to increase volume is by
| bumping up the output volume, whereas any sort of mp3
| player you can bump up the volume of the source
| independently from the output. Maybe if you burn them at
| a higher volume and keep CD player's volume lower you'll
| have better luck?
|
| Disclaimer: I'm far from an audiophile, I just know from
| personal experience that if your source is low volume and
| your output is cranked up you get a lot of...distortion?
| Interference? Artifacts? I don't know, it just sounds
| staticky and worse.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > if your source is low volume and your output is cranked
| up you get a lot of...distortion? Interference?
| Artifacts?
|
| Mostly noise because you're amplifying it as well, and
| possibly artifacts because material converted at too low
| levels (which is the case of old CD rips that weren't
| normalized before encoding) wouldn't use all the
| available headroom, therefore losing one bit.
| phil-m wrote:
| Support for artists and flac as the other comment already
| said (as well as clean UX)
| Nullabillity wrote:
| If you want to support artists you'd be way better of
| just making a direct donation.
| phil-m wrote:
| Sure, but:
|
| * not every artist has a donation link. * I don't get the
| album for free otherwise
|
| So I think it's totally ok for the service to give 10% to
| bandcamp (or whatever camp it will be in the future).
|
| But I would be really happy when something like Faircamp
| takes off, and is easy for artists to use (or labels
| etc.), so they would be having more control, while
| providing a clean interface (unlike e.g. Qobuz)
| chx wrote:
| No, I _want_ to pay for my music. Otherwise why would the
| author continue such beautiful music?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Probably not. Bandcamp still sells albums, Amazon as
| well, and there are bunch of streaming services out
| there. If everyone was ripping from YouTube how would
| they stay in business?
| JohnFen wrote:
| I certainly don't, mostly because I want to pay the
| artists I appreciate. But also, the sound quality is
| awful.
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| > The Bandcamp fridays, the curation, the interviews, the
| selectors, the IRL presence at Record Fairs or at events like
| Record Store Day...
|
| I have a completely different experience.
|
| Bandcamp will survive because it's primarily an independent
| online music / record / merch store. All that other stuff is
| just .... it's bloat and fluff that gets in the way of the
| music tbh.
| pickledish wrote:
| > Bandcamp will survive because it's primarily an independent
| online music / record / merch store
|
| Since it seems like you might have not heard, as of last year
| bandcamp is no longer independent (which I assume is the
| impetus for projects like the OP):
|
| https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/epic-games-acquires-
| ba...
|
| edit: ah, unless you meant "a store for independent music"
| instead of "an independent store for music", english
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| > ah, unless you meant "a store for independent music"
| instead of "an independent store for music", english
|
| yeah, the first one. (it's late on a thursday and terraform
| is being difficult, limited spare brainpower).
| caslon wrote:
| Bandcamp Fridays gave (and presently, still give) 100% of
| Bandcamp's cut to the artists. Any "replacement" platform
| that doesn't have it will mean the artists get less money,
| which _gets in the way of the music._
|
| As somebody who obviously didn't pay attention to any artist
| _on_ the platform, of course anything beyond a quick, one-
| click, Amazon-style storefront will be "getting in the way
| of the music," for you.
|
| There's already a solution for that, though:
|
| Go shop on Amazon, if you don't care about what percentage of
| the profits the artist gets. They have the patented "Buy now
| with 1-Click(r)" experience, and it'll likely be faster for
| you to purchase using it.
|
| Personally, I want a world where people can afford to make
| music for a living, and Bandcamp was great at doing
| everything it could to try and make that happen for as many
| people as possible.
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| You've focused in on the Bandcamp Friday thing.
|
| When I read the original parent it was everything else that
| I was like "meh, Bandcamp would be perfectly fine without
| any of that"
|
| Bandcamp Fridays just got lumped into the quote tbh.
|
| I'm tired. It's Thursday. Terraform was kicking me in the
| head today.
|
| Although I can never remember which bloody Friday is
| Bandcamp Friday so I think I've managed to do like one of
| them.
|
| Bandcamp was going for like 10 years before the Fridays
| existed. If they needed to go to keep the store online, I'd
| be fine with that (not that I think that's necessary).
|
| Oh and I used to work for a performing royalties
| organisation... so... yeah... I kind of do care about how
| much artists get paid for their work.
|
| Yeah it would be great if making a living off music was
| feasible for more people.
|
| But the magic is in the fact that's it's not. There's magic
| in the sacrifice.
|
| Edit -- this part of your reply was annoying me.
|
| > As somebody who obviously didn't pay attention to any
| artist on the platform, of course anything beyond a quick,
| one-click, Amazon-style storefront will be "getting in the
| way of the music," for you.
|
| For me... the connection to the artist happens through the
| music that I buy from them.
|
| So you know what. Yeah, I would buy off amazon. Or boomkat.
| Or bleep. Or redeye. Or phonica. Or honest johns. Or SOTU.
| Or juno.
|
| I'm an absolute record store whore. I have no allegiances.
|
| Because buying the actual music is the important bit I
| believe.
|
| Why?
|
| Because no one buys music anymore.
|
| That's why artists have to tour so much -- to make that
| living you spoke about. Because no one buys anything these
| days.
|
| Well... I do. But I'm weird.
|
| I couldn't care less about instagram posts or posting
| photos of people hanging out in the studio tho. That stuff
| is pure bobbins as far as I'm concerned.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| > Although I can never remember which bloody Friday is
| Bandcamp Friday so I think I've managed to do like one of
| them.
|
| Bookmark this silly site: https://isitbandcampfriday.com/
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| Oh I have. And I always forget anyway.
|
| I buy physical copies. Is good enough for me.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| > Any "replacement" platform that doesn't have it will mean
| the artists get less money, which gets in the way of the
| music.
|
| This doesn't sound right, there are 8 billion people in
| this world, a large chunk of them potential 'artists' with
| sufficient motivation, and not everyone is motivated by
| money.
| elevaet wrote:
| For me it was all about:
|
| - a very generous cut for the artist - how well the site
| functions - it does just enough, very practical. Clean UX and
| UI - flac
| elevaet wrote:
| I should say _is_ all about. BC still does all those core
| most important things. Long live Bandcamp.
| porcoda wrote:
| I think Bandcamp does a great job bringing artists closer to
| the audience without any of those things like interviews,
| curation, IRL presence. Honestly, those things always rubbed me
| the wrong way since they felt like the kind of marketing that
| we get through traditional means (e.g., Rolling Stone
| articles), except with an indie flavor: some music nerd picked
| a winner and put them forward, and artists who didn't make the
| cut by the Bandcamp tastemakers take more effort to find.
|
| I think the absence of that sort of "pick-a-winner-and-
| interview-them" does a lot for making things flat and fair for
| all. The primary people who get grumpy about getting rid of
| that are the people whose job it is to be
| curator/interviewer/etc. I'm not terribly sad if they go away.
| fivre wrote:
| they were pretty consistent about picking good artists
| though, which was great for scenes i dont follow myself
|
| no one person can sift through every scene and genre to find
| the good shit, and there's plenty of bad shit. i can do that
| for like, one scene
|
| bandcamp articles generally delivered me more quality finds
| with more variety than automated "you may also like..."
| curation systems a la spotify or last.fm.
|
| it's not like the latter are truly democratizing anything
| either--once getting big on spotify (or nowadays, tiktok)
| became important commercially, you got a whole ecosystem of
| influencers behind the scenes offering promotion in those
| systems. getting boosted via a faceless "chill sunday morning
| coffee music" playlist is still curation
| dendrite9 wrote:
| And I thought the bandcamp did a good job with the best of
| the month lists because it wasn;t just what sold best. I
| frequently started my morning listening to the bands from one
| of the articles on the homepage while I drank coffee and got
| caught up. For categories like hip hop, ambient, or folk I
| don't follow enough to have a grasp of who or what I might
| like, so I treated the articles like a radio show, a chance
| to stumble on something interesting. The posts focused on a
| specific region and genre were usually worth the read, and I
| appreciated how sometimes there were links to some artists
| side projects in a different genre.
|
| Today's album of the day post was about Japanese Acid Folk,
| not something I care about at all. But it wasn't a bad way to
| start the day with something new.
| https://daily.bandcamp.com/album-of-the-day/various-
| artists-...
|
| I suppose it seemed valuable to me that the various writers
| or editors could focus on niches, not the best of the month
| and this month it is written by a metalhead.
|
| If anything I thought the suggested albums at the bottom iss
| a bit too skewed toward certain bands. I'm not sure if that's
| targeting by user, or if there are too many connections in
| people's purchases to avoid making the links. On the other
| hand, the artist suggested albums at the bottom are almost
| always worth a listen if they have taken the time to add any.
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| Literally a few minutes ago Adam Neely (Pretty famous
| youtuber and Jazz player) posted a video specifically about
| this point[1], and I fully agree with his thesis: If you take
| out the "music nerds" as the gatekeepers, their place will be
| taken by Google/Instagram/TikTok indexing and MinMax algos
| and whoever can influence those.
|
| The tech to create content may have exploded in the last
| years, but the ability to truly connect and discover (and I
| mean ways to build cultural, emotional and social connections
| in and outside of the internet) has plummeted.
|
| I don't agree that technology is strictly at fault here, but
| this side of the equation has been heavily ignored due to the
| less immediate monetization options. We've gone for the
| "intensive farming" of art and culture compared to more
| "sustainable" approaches, and we're experiencing the
| equivalent of desertification following a monocolture.
|
| [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RceZ8VS8PbQ
| somnic wrote:
| This isn't really what you're posting about I do find
| curation and reviews to be valuable, if you avoid reifying
| them too much. I often see a bit of an anti-critic sentiment,
| mostly from people who disagree with a review for something
| they've got strong feelings about one way or another, but I
| don't want to spend the time to extensively search through
| the Sturgeon's law wasteland of indie music. Algorithmic
| recommendations are sometimes helpful but don't often
| encourage me to branch out as much as reviewers, especially
| when it comes to unknown unknowns. The fact that a lot of
| indie artists find it hard to get attention is really just
| the nature of the game. There are a lot of musicians and
| aspiring musicians out there.
| com2kid wrote:
| > The Bandcamp fridays, the curation, the interviews, the
| selectors, the IRL presence at Record Fairs or at events like
| Record Store Day
|
| I am a pretty regular listener to music on Bandcamp, and I have
| never heard of any of these things.
|
| To me Bandcamp is a minimalist distribution medium and simple
| media player for independent artists.
| zeekaran wrote:
| Same, as well as letting me stream it when I can't play from
| my downloaded library, such as from a work computer.
| TylerE wrote:
| Certainly not the tech. It's 2024 and their iOS app is still
| not ipad-compatible.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I thought I used it years ago on an iPad. It was just a
| scaled up iPhone app so the resolution was bad but, then
| again, how many pixels do you really want in a music player?
| bee_rider wrote:
| I typically use Pandora for my discovery and then buy on
| Bandcamp first (if available), then Amazon (eww, I know, but
| this is the catch all failure-path). The Bandcamp curation
| stuff seemed... interesting I guess? I'm glad they were able to
| employ some music experts. But it is hard to beat system that
| is tailored to your taste.
| riedel wrote:
| Actual the thing is that I can buy and own music pretty hassle
| free. I haven' t really figured how this freecamp sitegenertor
| helps selling/buying music (including hard copies)
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| TIL Epic owned Bandcamp
| noirscape wrote:
| Keep in mind that this doesn't actually work as a webshop. It's
| just a static site generator - there's very little in the way of
| payment mechanisms, the documentation claims it's "not enforced".
|
| I think it's neat but this isn't competition for Bandcamp. Could
| be cool if you just want to host some music tracks on a nicely
| formatted page though.
| toomim wrote:
| Oh. That's a big deal.
| troymc wrote:
| I guess the artist could just give a link to their external
| e-commerce store hosted by e.g. Lemon Squeezy or whatever.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| They could just set up their site as a wordpress install with
| one of the many mature payment/web shop plugins. Can be
| customized as needed as well.
| romwell wrote:
| They could just become software engineers, roll their own
| solution, start making more money that way, and give up music
| entirely.
|
| Or they could use a platform that was explicitly designed to
| address their needs without any fuss.
| 13781_throwaway wrote:
| It's trivial: get an FTP account, mount it locally with
| curlftpfs, and then use SVN or CVS on the mounted
| filesystem. A little stripe integration and you're off and
| running.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| You misunderstand me. I meant Faircamp could just set up
| the wordpress site for them instead of their solution that
| doesn't have payment integration.
| romwell wrote:
| >Keep in mind that this doesn't actually work as a webshop.
|
| Webshop is, like, the _entire point_ of webcamp.
|
| Talking as an indie artist here.
| lancesells wrote:
| This is not an alternative to Bandcamp. More of a music-oriented
| static site generator.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| 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. :-/
| cameron4 wrote:
| 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
| JohnFen wrote:
| Bandcamp has remained great for me.
| bluescrn wrote:
| 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?
| e12e wrote:
| > artists/bands on the wrong side of politics
|
| Any examples? Which side is "wrong"?
| portaouflop wrote:
| 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.
| artificial wrote:
| Communist stuff gets a pass:
| https://nekrochaparro.bandcamp.com/album/hells-hammer-
| and-th...
| digging wrote:
| 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.
| asimovfan wrote:
| Are you really comparing communists with nazis?
| artificial wrote:
| Some examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/BreadTube/comments/
| 11sqyue/tim_pool... https://www.davidrovics.com/bandcamp/ h
| ttps://x.com/realbrysongray/status/1633550771907117056?s=46
| ...
| 13781_throwaway wrote:
| 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.)
| hamburglar wrote:
| 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.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| 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.
| mikeflstfi wrote:
| 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.
| mlochbaum wrote:
| 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
| alisonatwork wrote:
| 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.
| Springtime wrote:
| 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.
| marcomourao wrote:
| > - There's no longer a live ticker on the home page showing
| the latest track/album purchases around the world.
|
| Still there for me.
| Springtime wrote:
| 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).
| Semaphor wrote:
| > 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
| Pxtl wrote:
| > 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.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| 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.
| Semaphor wrote:
| > 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.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| 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
| Semaphor wrote:
| 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.
| Pxtl wrote:
| 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.
| pier25 wrote:
| It's a cool project but not really an alternative to Bandcamp. It
| doesn't solve payments or distribution.
|
| Bandcamp also offers a streaming app like Spotify etc for all the
| music users have bought on the platform.
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| All the power to the project, but it's not an alternative until
| some way to make and manage sales is added.
|
| Too bad Web3.0 crowd is all about hype and make-money-quick
| schemes, otherwise it's a perfect fit for the problem of selling
| musing directly.
|
| Trans-border sales/transfers without crypto is a pain, thousands
| of musicians get locked out of their money because politicians
| keep playing their idiotic "big boy" games.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| Very glad to see people coming up with alternatives here. Plenty
| of artists sell music directly on their sites in various ways and
| this seems like another way to do that. I still use Bandcamp for
| now, but I get that extra fuzzy feeling when I can buy even more
| directly!
| robbyiq999 wrote:
| It was sad to see so much indie music go down with MySpace and it
| would be a shame to see that happen again, I wonder if there is
| some kind of peer-to-peer solution like mastodon and bittorrent
| that could work within this model
| stereosteve wrote:
| Just a few days ago I started working on a similar project, but
| one where you can upload via a UI.
|
| After talking to some artists + musician friends, it was clear
| that a SSG was going to be a non-starter for most of them.
|
| Currently it just supports simple track upload + playback, but
| plan is to add Artists, Albums + RSS feed.
|
| Code: https://github.com/stereosteve/SHYM Demo:
| https://tunez.stereosteve.workers.dev/
|
| There is no auth and everything you upload will be deleted in the
| coming days. But feel free to upload some tracks!
| olah_1 wrote:
| Bandcamp has always lacked a coherent vision.
|
| They have an app but it is incredibly underpowered and lacking
| logical features.
|
| Each band can list their tour dates but there is no feed where
| users can see all of the bands that are going to be in their
| area, etc.
|
| Just very frustrating because all the primitives are in place,
| but there's no product vision.
| jaculabilis wrote:
| I, for one, hope that the "product vision" people stay far away
| from it. It works perfectly for the thing it is: an easy way
| for listeners to listen to and purchase DRM-free music files.
| romwell wrote:
| >Bandcamp has always lacked a coherent vision.
|
| Hard disagree.
|
| The coherent vision for Bandcamp is:
|
| - Give a place for independent musicians to upload their music
| to showcase and sell music and merch with one click and no fuss
| (and a reasonable sales cut).
|
| - When fans buy music, they get the files (no app, software,
| DRM, or any bullshit).
|
| That's all. Nothing more is needed.
|
| The "alternative" doesn't offer that. It will fail.
| phil-m wrote:
| RIIR hits again - nice
| Bjorkbat wrote:
| If you're looking for more bandcamp alternatives, someone made a
| media player (https://github.com/torcado194/scritch-player) that
| you can add to an Itch page (example:
| https://keestak.itch.io/heck-deck-ost).
|
| Cool part about Itch is that it's already got an established
| community around it, and that's very unlikely to change.
| wvh wrote:
| I buy most of my music from Bandcamp in FLAC format. I'd be sad
| to see it go.
|
| I've been digitising my music collection since the early 2000s in
| FLAC - which was pretty expensive on disk space relative to the
| size of hard drives back then. It's been fun but also somewhat
| worrying to hear my daughter ask why I don't have every song in
| the universe, but also why my music plays without internet
| connection or dedicated app. I feel her generation won't own
| anything anymore, and I still have to make up my mind whether
| that's a good or a bad thing. Without getting political, I fear
| art, music, software and other intangible goods might end up
| acquired, centralised and in the hands of lawyers at increasingly
| larger monopolistic corporations, and for some reason, a lot of
| grassroots artist initiatives seem to falter and end up going
| nowhere.
|
| I will support Bandcamp, Faircamp or any place where I can get
| the music I like in CD quality without DRM. I want to support
| artists and I hope at least some of these more independent music
| outlets stay alive to cater to us who care about both artists and
| fans not to end up as vassals to a profit-extraction rental
| system for third parties.
| wyclif wrote:
| Like the fact that there's an alternative and support that, but
| hate the name.
| kornhole wrote:
| I know at least a dozen ways to discover, scrape, and share
| music. What is really needed is a relatively easy way to pay
| artists. I have accounts setup at Patreon, Locals, Librapay, Buy
| Me a Coffee, KOFI, and others. Most people don't pay out as much
| as I do and have this many accounts. If we have a single easy
| place to find and pay all artists, please tell me.
| worik wrote:
| I think there is too much emphasis on paying artists
|
| For professional musicians that is a big deal
|
| Professional musicians are a tiny proportion of musicians
|
| For those of us who create for the love of creation payment is
| not the point. The main point is reach. Can I point you at my
| music, where you can access it without me, or you, having to be
| Uber geeks?
|
| We want you to come to our shows. We would like to cover our
| costs, Yes, but the most important part is having an audience for
| our art
|
| The cost of recording music is orders of magnitude less than it
| was, getting it available, with out becoming hostage tio horrid
| platforms (looking at you, Google) is very hard
|
| I am hoping this will help
| spacec0wb0y wrote:
| I didn't realise Bandcamp was unfair
| max-throat wrote:
| Why haven't we seen something like Bandcamp or GOG but for
| film/TV?
| joveian wrote:
| GOG made a brief effort to expand into movies almost a decade
| ago but stopped because the industry revolved around regional
| restrictions (they asked customers if they should keep going
| with regional restrictions and customers said no). There are
| some reginal restrictions on GOG and Bandcamp but nothing like
| would be necessary for the movie industry it sounds like. I
| don't know if focusing entirely on indie films would avoid this
| issue or if even they end up agreeing to regional restrictions.
| nipperkinfeet wrote:
| Looks like a fantastic alternative. The waveform in the audio is
| cool.
| Diti wrote:
| All I am seeing is a JSON file. Firefox on iOS.
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