Look, I am not saying the experience is the same, but I am not going to fully poo-poo the concept either. From what I have seen, they are really working on developing the experience, and it certainly could open up some new revenue streams for artists as well as exposure.
Bandcamp is highly prefered by artists than physical media and from streaming services, (royalty rates are $0.003 per song from Spotify and Youtube).
In one article I read, an artist said "“The money I currently get for making the album cover would be the amount I’d get for the whole record if I were to sign a record contract now.”
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I’m gonna suggest, controversially, I’m sure, that this one person doesn’t speak for everyone who makes music.
it’s anecdotal i know, but all my music making friends - professional musicians but mainly still requiring day jobs - have long talked up bandcamp. they got way better percentages there than really anywhere else, and the company seemed like it cared about music - not just hey, here’s a random market to make money from
i don’t really want to help power the behemoth that epic’s become. they force their developers into endless crunch, their biggest game targets kids and uses gambling like mechanics, and similar to tiktok, their biggest investor is a chinese gaming company who also owns big chunks of other american companies
it all just seems so unnecessary
Sure, compared to other streaming and downloading services, it seems great. But there are still artists who like producing physical media, too.
Yeah. We’ve made compensating artists far more complicated than it needs to be, all in service of covering up just how much a big chunk corporations take out of their earnings. We like to pretend that the culture industries are somehow less problematic than other industries, but they are just as exploitative of their work force as any other industry, maybe more so, since our default of working musicians are the ones who became wealthy and famous. The reality is that the vast, vast majority of musicians are never going to be wealthy and are often subject for various forms of exploitation, from gigging all the way up to being on a major label (same for working for other cultural industries).
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bandcamp does do that too.
often artists there can sell physical media. often limited lp, tape, or cd releases you can buy along with a digital album, or just on it’s own. some people even do strictly streaming previews and only provide the full version physical ( but that’s rare )
in some ways it’s much more like etsy than spotify or apple music
truly so. most everyone has to pay ascap ( or the other one ) to license songs and yet a few times when friends’ songs have appeared in commercials or as background music somewhere the actual money they get is near zero, with ascap making out like bandits
shows are still generally i think the best money. and even there ticketmaster ( and sometimes ascap ) get more than their fair share
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This doesn’t appeal to me, but I’m old and kids are gonna do what they do. If the Bandcamp acquisition lets more smaller artists do this thing, with album sales and merch support, and most importantly if it stays artist focused with the biggest cut of money going to bands, it could be a win.
To the people saying virtual concerts are lame and real concerts are better: obviously. But if you’re teenager in a small town in Iowa and you’re favorite band is in Cambodia or wherever, you’re not going to a concert anytime soon. Instead, you pay $10 to watch a live set in a virtual space, support the band, talk to other fans, buy a T-shirt. That sounds like a good set up.
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I definitely don’t trust them.
https://twitter.com/MagusFirebeard/status/1499767870003179520
Start of the thread about what got them fired
https://twitter.com/MagusFirebeard/status/1499783235902984194
We all have to think about how the cis people feel about us!
(My computer was already an Epic free zone after their client put unsolicited spyware on my computer a few years ago, but they have done nothing to change my mind since then and have only got worse. I have already had to wait on at least two games that I was looking forward to after they became Epic exclusive. I guess I’ll just get the bug-fixed versions instead.)
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