To me, Epic’s whole beef with Apple and Google was that they wanted to be the middle man instead.
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During Covid there was an Industrial virtual con. I wasn’t into most of the band/DJs involved, and some of them were pretty weak in their presentation.
But I was into Peter Turns Pirate. I have seen him open for 2 different shows, and he has had the largest stage presence for a single performer I have ever seen (not that I am an expert at live shows, but still) The guy does more with a couple of crates and some lights than I’ve seen whole bands do.
So I was excited to see him perform for the virtual show. Despite some technical hiccups, I was entertained. I would prefer to see him live, but if he is performing somewhere that i can’t get to, this is not a bad alternative.
AND - he played a song that as not on the EP I had of his, and I found out that was one of his old tracks, which I went out and bought on Bandcamp.
I think this is a good intro to Peter Turns Pirate. Find him on Bandcamp!
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Worth reading Peter Kirn as usual on topics like this:
The Tencent angle jumps out as one that people aren’t emphasising as much as they should.
And I’d echo a lot of people above about Bandcamp and how this worries me as I rely on it to assuage my guilt for the amount of music I get that the artists are not fairly compensated for.
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That’s been my impression, and why I’ve tried to purchase as much of my music as I can through Bandcamp. And from what I’ve gathered, it seems like a good platform even for the really small artists. I was poking around looking at some of the revenue-share details they give artists, and it all seemed pretty reasonable, plus they were able to facilitate a lot things like having vinyl pressed even for relatively small quantities. I’ve always felt pretty good about dropping $8 or $10 on an album there because it seemed like a pretty good chunk of that was landing with the folks I wanted to support.
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It might be fine - Epic is the only storefront that is making a fuss about how high the other store cuts are, and they charge much less than Apple, Steam, or anyone else on their store.
I am also wondering, given the timing if part of this acquisition idea is coming from Harmonix, who understand more about the intersection of games and music than anyone. And has always been very good to musicians (since everyone at the company is one)
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And as mentioned above Bandcamp’s revenue share is very fair. I do like to buy on Bandcamp Fridays when they don’t take anything, but I won’t wait for one to buy something.
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I think their point was more that for a company of Epic siize and capabilities Apple provides no value whatsoever to them from a marketing or payments perspective. And yet still gets a 30% cut, which Epic passes on to the consumer. If you buy in-game currency direct from Epic it’s 30% cheaper.
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one of my favorite companies being bought by one of my least favorite companies. hooray!
( though to be fair to epic, a lot of big game developers and publishers seem kind of awful, so… )
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I wonder if the music will remain DRM free
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me too 
plan to download my entire collection asap
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I don’t know, but I’m gonna keep doing what I’ve been doing, which is buying physical media. Or if buying digital, I’ll put it on a cd…
Honestly, I’m not sure the trade-offs going from physical media to digital has been worth it for artists. It’s just generally speaking become another way for the industry to assert greater control over production of popular music.
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I know the feels. My couple-hundred-album library is long overdue for a complete FLACup.
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They werent that cool. like an NFT island party for juniors I guess, or so my kids related.
Just hoping the independent musicians don’t get shouldered aside for Epic Game Music and 8-bit sonatas, if they’re savvy enough to see how unproductive that would be.
They will
They are not. And the fact is that most people who aren’t working musicians or music nerds really care about that either, sadly.
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Enough said
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It would be pretty hard to disentangle a format change, from all of the other changes in music over the last thirty years:
Back in the day, to make music, you needed enough backing to get equipment/instruments, and a publishing deal, together with all the radio/MTV/marketing required for people to actually hear your music, which would be released to the public in some kind of physical format. After all of that, you might get someone money from your label, if they felt like it.
Now, almost anyone can record music with nothing more than a laptop and put it out to the whole world, and get paid for it. The downside is they’re now competing with everyone else who has a laptop and a tune.
I’m not sure if either is ‘better’, people are still making music, and big companies are still making money off of it. I guess at least it’s a bit easier for random bands/artists to reach an audience now, so on balance a small win?
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Of all the various format changes, I’d argue that the one that has most benefited artists the most has been the cassette tape, because you could make a crappy demo in your garage, and a tape to either hand out on the street and at shows to drum up excitement. They were a key part of building up an actual set of alternatives to the structures of the corporate music industry, which existed well before the modern WWW. It helped drive the explosion of smaller, independent labels (which included a distribution chain for a while) and globally circulating zines.
And get lost far more easily in the process. I’m not convinced that even with decent platforms like Bandcamp that the current environment is all that better artists now, even if in theory their reach is wider.
You know who likes virtual concerts? People who have never been to a real concert.
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I realize I know nothing about Epic or the situation, but all I can think is “great, another good thing ruined.”
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