• Metal Zealot@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Why was Epic even interested in Bandcamp in the first place??

    This fucking blows. Start downloading all your music you’ve bought, you soon won’t be able to own anything online anymore.

    • beetus@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Stop reading the news and spend some time in your local community. It’s the best way I’ve found to shake that feeling of dread and exhaustion

  • onlooker@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Man, I wish Bandcamp would catch a break already, I actually like (liked?) the platform. I like supporting artists I like and I like supporting platforms that sell DRM-free music. If Bandcamp goes away and no other DRM-free alternative comes up, it’s back to piracy for me.

  • dinckel@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This has to end at some point. Practically everything is owned by like 5 companies, and they don’t even acquire them for any particular reason, other than to prevent someone else from doing the same.

  • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
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    1 year ago

    Fuck you Epic for many reasons, but for this one in particular

  • Fluid@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    Man… we can’t have anything nice… damn capitalists fucking every thing up

  • rhythmisaprancer@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Wow, I don’t think Epic ever did anything with Bandcamp. What a terrible way to end it. What will become of the artists who use it as their main platform? I source a significant amount of my music from these artist, from that site.

  • Daniel@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Could someone fill me in on why we’re panicking about it being sold? Epic never seemed to do anything to it and it seems Songtradr is keeping it’s the same, does Songtradr have a bad track record or something?

    Sorry if this is a dumb question, I just feel out of the loop.

    • SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Effectively firing half the employees seems like a strong sign that the new owners are going to ruin what made Bandcamp good.

      • Amju Wolf@pawb.social
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        1 year ago

        Holy fucking shit they fired 830 employees. Considering what Bandcamp has done (nothing for years despite being pretty terrible UX-wise) and how simple it is, why the fuck did they originally have 1600+ employees?

        A startup with < 50 people could make it work. They don’t need hundreds of employees. Lay off more and actually focus on development FFS.

        • small44@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          However, most of the employees they laid off are those in charge of the Bandcamp blog, which is full of good articles and music recommendations. I think it’s the best editorial team. Bandcamp really needs them if they want to keep the quality.

          • Amju Wolf@pawb.social
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            1 year ago

            It’s sad but how critical are those people / how many do they need? I didn’t even know Bandcamp had a blog. I use it in a very simple way: I find music I want to own somewhere, check out if it’s on Bandcamp, if it is, I buy it and download it to my library. If not, I have one other place to get it (a “local” eshop that also sells music for download) and then it is the high seas.

        • slouching_employer@lemmy.one
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          1 year ago

          No, the article says that Epic Games “laid off 16% of its [Epic Games’] workforce, or 830 employees”.

          I believe Bandcamp was ~120 people total – so 60 laid off.

          • Amju Wolf@pawb.social
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            1 year ago

            Ahh my bad, can’t read apparently. That amount of employees sounds way more reasonable, even if I feel like they weren’t doing much.

            • sugar_in_your_tea
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              1 year ago

              Just think of half of your company getting laid off, that’s going to be noticable regardless of the total number of employees.

              • Amju Wolf@pawb.social
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                1 year ago

                Oh yeah no question about that. My point was just that I don’t understand why you’d need so many people for such a fairly simple project - with such a narrow scope; but that’s moot since they didn’t have that many people after all.

        • r_se_random
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          1 year ago

          From a technical standpoint, sure.

          But there’s a large amount of conversations that happens with Studios and Artists to make sure that the fees are negotiated properly. Sometimes large partners have a singular manager for their coverage. That could always balloon the org size.

          • Amju Wolf@pawb.social
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            1 year ago

            Yeah, I can see how half of their workforce (which was apparently 120 people, I can’t read) could be just people who negotiate the deals and such. Best of luck to everyone.

    • ElderWendigo
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      1 year ago

      Songtradr is a music licensing middle man, charging both artists and those looking to license their music, and somehow despite money coming in at both ends they were losing money in 2022. That does not bode well for the status quo at their new acquisition, Bandcamp, especially considering that their very first move was to fire half the staff. Songtradr doesn’t care about artists or music fans, their singular and only priority is entangling artists and music distributors in their licensing scheme. They’re middlemen. Middlemen are great for exploiting the free market for profit. Middlemen are at best an additional drain on profits for everyone else. Bandcamp was one of the few places you could buy digital music that really felt like ownership and not licensing locked behind DRM. The songtradr acquisition has the potential to kill development of that kind of digital and DRM-free distribution marketplace and limit investment in anything else that tries to do something similar. If songtradr continuing to lose money after the Bandcamp acquisition, it will be an example to all investors that DRM-free digital music cannot be profitable.

    • Kayn@dormi.zone
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      1 year ago

      So far it looks like it’s just the internet’s usual doomspeak, with a side of anti-Epic circlejerking.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    One of the worst tech labor years ever continues with the news that roughly half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off.

    Epic Games bought the indie music platform back in 2022 for an undisclosed amount before selling it barely a year later.

    Late last month, Epic Games laid off 16 percent of its workforce, or 830 employees, due to what CEO Tim Sweeney described as overspending.

    Epic also revealed that it would sell the Bandcamp business to California-based music licensing company Songtradr.

    Employees who did not receive offers from Songtradr were notified today and will be eligible for severance.

    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.


    The original article contains 212 words, the summary contains 137 words. Saved 35%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • Kayn@dormi.zone
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      1 year ago

      Epic Games has literally done nothing with Bandcamp, what are you talking about?

      • theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Doubt you’ll get a reply because it is bullshit. I’m not a fan of Epic within the games space and they may not have improved things like the Bandcamp app but to say that it has “gone to shit” under them is just straight idiocy. More accurately they have done nothing to or with band camp really.

    • CustodialTeapot@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Care to elaborate why you’re calling them Evil Games?

      They are better for developers via unreal engine.

      They are better for both developers and publishers via the markets lowest cut of earnings via their store front.

      They pay well to try break steams monopoly. If anything, steam are the bad guys via their extortionate cut. (30%)

      They are better for indie Devs on Fortnight compared to Roblox.

      They do everything better than most… so place your anger correctly. I’m sick of people hating on epic while they’re the only company trying to beat the monopolys…

      • gerryflap@feddit.nl
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        1 year ago

        That may be so, but they also got deals with quite some games that were supposed to be cross-laumcher to become (timed) Epic exclusive instead. This forces you to use their garbage-teir launcher. Besides that, Epic doesn’t really seem to take any action to help Linux adoption like Steam does. And as a Rocket League fan I’m also specifically pissed about how they have been running my favorite game into the ground slowly.

        Epic isn’t trying to beat monopolies, it’s just trying to become another one.

        • CustodialTeapot@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Linux one, I wasn’t aware of but that does suck.

          Unfortunately, due to the behaviours of the audience they are trying to gain that is likely the best and cost effective way to gain new users. But I do totally agree their launcher sucks ass and needs work.

      • BakedGoods
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think you know what monopoly means. Unreal Engine is neat and pushing graphics with every release but Epic store sucks for 1. Paying for exclusives (this is called a monopoly), 2. Having client with terrible and slow UI.

        Steam is not a monopoly. It’s just by far the best experience available when buying, selling, and playing games.