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All Ears .: 004 :. Bandcamp is Dead
Bandcamp is dead. Dead if you love the free, CC licensed music of the Netlabel Movement. Bandcamp will now start charging for “free” downloads. I will say that Ethan Diamond, head huckster at Bandcamp, is consistent as he never committed to free music, even at the launch of the service, “But we pretty much stay neutral on the should-music-be-free question, instead putting the control in the hands of the band.”
One of my favorite netlabels, Feedback Loop, is already leaving Bandcamp and headed to archive.org. Artist Bernadette Erikka has deleted her Bandcamp account, while Mystified plans on staying. At least if you are a netlabel or an artist, you have several options: Archive.org/Netlabels, Archive.org/Community Audio, Free Music Archive, scene.org, and/or SonicSquirrel. These are options that many artists and netlabels will have to use immediately.
Forgetting about the Netlabel scene for a moment, in the rock/pop world, head peddler Ethan Diamond is obviously now siding with the dying commercial labels as new and emerging artists will not be able to afford the Bandcamp service. Hmm, maybe, I’m being too hard on Bandcamp. You know capitalists have their own worries and anxieties. Diamond further lamented about his company’s troubles in the comment section:
Got any alternate ideas as to how we ought to cover the costs when a free album is downloaded 75,000 times? I suppose we could show every fan an exciting offer for 10 year term life insurance. That would be a start. We could also raise the revenue share rate on artists selling their music. That might get us a little closer. And we could stop answering the fans who write in with support issues. That would probably take us to the finish line, but all this sounds less attractive to us than just charging money for something that costs us money.
So will this be a lesson learned for the Netlabel community? Next time a company offers a new “free” service, will the community jump on board? Or will we put our time, energy and effort to make the services available to us better?
| The CC licensed photograph of a jazz funeral is by Rick Galvan. |
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Ha! Let’s review different commercial sites that allow free downloads: Last.fm and a little site called Youtube. Still laughing at Bandcamp.
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I think archive.org is a good long term storage solution. But it doesn’t have the sharing features to really allow the music to spread in our changing media environment. Sonic Squirrel seems to have some of that. What about Jamendo?
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I was never a big fan of bandcamp in terms of how the stuff is presented there by standard. And obviously – by reading the bandcamp blog entry to this topic – they really have had expectations which weren’t realistic. Easy to say now, but here for instance was Soundcloud more transparent what way they’ve chosen from the start.
One of the big downer’s for me for the future of Bandcamp: they simply don’t offer real “killer”-features in my opinion. where are community-building options or even those for letting your personal fanbase more involved and not just simply download stuff? – For me it was never more than a simple hosting solution with a so-la-la player and a payment solution in the same quality.
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Possible idea: Netlabels and artists can use Bandcamp to stream their music and a site like archive.org to download. That is until Bandcamp starts charging for streaming.
This is a great post! I had to say it first of all.
It was only yesterday that I was speaking with David Domingo, from netaudio.es, about the changing I was feeling and how we, netlabel managers had to adapt to it:
1. We saw many artists going to Bandcamp to release their own stuff taking advantage of the payment system but still giving their work for free. Some of them we would not have had any problem in releasing here at the Lab.
2. The people that share a private track on Soundcloud with 4000 people and still send us a private message asking us if we want to release it.
Apparently 1. is sorted out by itself. You don’t offer “free” if you don’t want to keep your word. I totally agree with Roland that Soundcloud was much more transparent on this from the beginning: “we will have free accounts and premium accounts” and that is their business model.
As for 2. I really don’t know what the solution is but to just ignore it. Some good music will be lost (I would like to see the play and download ratio of those tracks shared with 4000 people at a time)but I think that, in the same way that netlabels have an responsibility towards their artists, if an artist wants to start a relationship with a netlabel that also should show some tact.
After all, netlabels do not charge their artists for all the work that is involved in a release and we always knew that there would be costs involved from the start. How Bandcamp’s genius failed to should be a case study in business dumbness.
Once again, great post David!
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What’s wrong with paying for music?
When will artists stop giving stuff away, I talk about it here http://wp.me/p13vof-2z
@Nick: I really don’t understand if you came here just to pimp your blog or to be a part of the discussion.
If you have taken the time to look around you are on a netlabel website. We release free music because many talented artists have chosen to release their music under a Creative Commons License, allowing them to keep all the rights to that music while sharing it.
In the same way that there is nothing wrong in paying for music there is also nothing wrong in giving it for free. Actually the trend points out to more and more artists giving their music for free cloning the netlabel/cc music model.
So your question is completely wrong if you, like me, have a real interest in music: the question should be “When will all the artists start giving music for free?”
Soon enough is my answer to that.
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@Nick: And there are plenty of commercial musicians who make a great living by giving music away: the Dead, Phish, Drive By Truckers, Built to Spill, Widespread Panic, etc. But to Fernando’s point, you don’t seem to understand the netlabel scene at all.
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I just cruised in here after following a tweet. I’m not pimping my blog, I thought the link I posted was pertinent to the discussion.
You always this friendly?
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First of all, I started using Bandcamp because it offered the chance to serve FeedbackLoop Label purpose of collecting some donation / pay what you want for a release, in order to gather money to release physical editions (one of the objectives of FbL). What I think is, humm well, was the main appeal of Bandcamp was the integration and offering of several different business models for artists and labels, which in this shady days of commercial music is the best idea to implement … FLEXIBLE SYSTEMS, that can shift quickly and adapt to change. By simply “ending” the Pay What You Want / Free Downloads what will possible happen is the loss of artists that can in the future be using their Payed Services going after other services. And what is really interesting (from a negative perspective) is that Bandcamp is rejecting the foundation of CC licensing in music, which is their biggest mistake. When a lot of people is going for CC licenses in everything (music, writing, photos, video) Bandcamp is going the opposite way, embracing the Copyright system without giving a great added value to the artists (maybe a better % cut in sales), but what about advertisement, social networking? Well, Zoe Cello, and Sufjan Stevens are their best examples so far. And if they end up giving their music in their own systems? Probably Bandcamp will realize that what they had that differentiated them is now gone, and they are just a digital shop, like any other existing for more time than them.
appealed to FbL due to
I am using Bandcamp still for a few releases. Much of my music is still available at archive.org, a resource I hope others will use and enjoy. As for the switch, it is sad, but as a friend of mine once said, “Dude, if it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is”. Yep.
@Nick: The link you posted has nothing to do with a) bandcamp’s decision b)the netalabel scene.
To participate in a discussion you explain your point of view in the comments and take it from there. On your comment/question you show that you really aren’t follow what is becoming more and more a trend: giving music for free. As you can see in the other comments to this post people are actually sharing their experience and sharing their thoughts about Bandcamp’s decision. Maybe you should try and do the same #justanidea
Am I always this friendly? No, today happens to be a good day and I am in good spirits.
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For a netlabel, I can see this being a deal-breaker.
For an individual who is self-releasing, if you’re getting in to the kind of numbers they’re talking about, you can probably find a way to charge enough to at least cover the cost. I think I had a total of 50 downloads (if that), so not really an issue for me at this juncture.
I don’t necessarily agree that this is the death-blow that it looks like at first. Download of an entire release counts as just one download, for instance.
Sadly, while I wish it could stay free, I understand the realities that drove it.
Also, there is nothing stopping anyone, including most in these comments (who probably have the coding skill), from creating their own site that does what bandcamp did, and just using something like Archive.org as the storage site.
Anyone care to put their (ahem) money where their mouth is?
In the meantime, feel free to use up my remaining free downloads and download my EP: http://mrbitterness.bandcamp.com/album/epic-flail
(sorry, couldn’t resist) ;-p
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I would like to make a quick comment on why I decided to sign up for Bandcamp on the first place and why I deleted my account afterwards.
As an indie artist, after coming back from a few years hiatus to music, what is important for me now is to get my art out there for people to listen to, share, enjoy, give feedback on, etc.. Gaining money from music/art is not my first priority right now. I don’t see sharing my work under CC licence as simply giving away stuff for free, rather a great way to truly connect to people who later (If they like it) become the exact people who will buy my CD, come to my concert etc. Then I will be happy to use services that allowed me to gain money on my CD sales etc., but what I’m looking for right now is not that. Bandcamp interface and download options provided a convenient and stylish way to share my albums online and it is also widely used in the artist community so I gave it a try. However the model that Bandcamp introduced now is suitable for established bands only and not too appealing to artists like me in my opinion.It also became clear to me that they don’t welcome free downloads the way they used to be so my retirement from the site was a sensible move on my part. Bandcamp decided to change the course of their business model the same way as many companies has done before (like Ning) and we as users can decided whether or not we still want to use the service.
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In my opinion BandCamp is still a great website for musicians and labels, especially for the pay what you want option. But obviously, it would be great if they would do something special for netlabels and Creative Commons world, just as Soundcloud did recently. We were thinking about starting to release our music via Bandcamp, this news could probably change things.
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As much as I absolutely HATE the new charges to the artist for free downloads, you must remember that bandcamp will still be one of the best options for streaming music. My listeners can still listen, regardless of whether the downloads are eaten up.
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I’m sorry, but if I have to pay money to make and distribute my art, it just isn’t art. At that point, it’s crass commercialism. I knew bandcamp was doomed when they announced that they would stop paying for my guitar strings and studio time.
the artists that we release don’t have to pay a thing to be released and we pay for everything but you can always put your actions where your words are and donate to our artists. thank you.
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I’m still not sure what to think about all this Bandcamp stuff yet. I’ve gone from shouting from the rooftops about them to mumbling under my breath. I get their motives, but it is definitely back to the drawing board for a lot of netlabels and individual artists (when it comes to the once easily answered question of ‘how / where to release this’).
Cheers for the article and I’ll definitely need to investigate some of those ‘other options’ links.
Just came in via a tweet to this discussion. I’m still learning lots about how the netlabel scene works. I make music, which i sell on cd and itunes as well as uploading it to the internet. I have enjoyed many a free net label release. I make music in a completly non profit way. Being in the realms of the experimental music, i know that i will never sell alot or get alot of downloads, i think. The internet is a odd place compared to the real tactile world. Server space and internet traffic costs, and the more your work is noticed the more you have to pay. This always creates problems. How successful websites exist without advertising or payment systems is a miracle. I like Bandcamp, but as others said I was surprised at it’s set up and even though it was supported by another company. I wondered how long it would last. (even though I can’t seem to find that company now?) I guess with net labels it is a sort of non profit element which people enjoy. Maybe folk should re align them self with that and stay away from free services from one company. That means building your own site and creating your own way of doing it. Bandcamp was and is easy to use. It has a clean aesthetic. Thats why alot of us like to use it. Should we not pay for that service? Interesting place we are in, Will have a think more about this conundrum.
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what about this update?
http://blog.bandcamp.com/2010/09/09/free-downloads-power-ups/#comment-2130
Quote:
“Ethan Diamond
Posted September 15, 2010 at 8:44 am | Permalink
Thanks for the feedback everybody! As suggested by several of the commenters, we’re going to refresh everyone’s free download credits every month (so, if you have less than 200 downloads remaining, we’ll just bump you up to 200 again). This still accomplishes our goal of keeping the costs of large-scale free download campaigns where they should be (on the people actually doing them), while also giving early-stage artists room to comfortably get started. Enjoy!”
Where do I stand on this? Wow – there’s a lot to talk about and I’ll try to be brief and summarize since I’m somewhat famous for being long winded.
I think bandcamp has a great thing going, there were in beta, and offered some services up front that they probably shouldn’t have done. People feel like they pulled the rug out from under them when they a) implemented the % of each sale charge, and then later b) implemented a charge for free downloads that hit a certain threshhold.
I know from my research the % of sales was coming, it was mentioned a long time ago. No harm no foul – they used the “free” beta version of the site to test and get things running and then once to a certain level they rolled out some fairly realistic costs for paid albums.
I was one of the later Soundcloud beta testers – and enjoyed my free account during testing in exchange for helping out with troubleshooting, etc… Soundcloud went to a “freemium” model – with a free account with limited capabilities and a tiered pricing plan from small artist to huge label levels of service. I didn’t see anything wrong with this – they made it plain that was what would happen.
Regarding Bandcamp’s adding charges for really large free download albums – even if they didn’t announce it – if it was killing their business model or services for paying customers – they had to do something.
I just read the post above me mentioning a 200 download threshhold that gets reset every month. This seems like a great compromise and looks promising to them supporting the cc/netlabel scene a little more than it seemed a week ago or so.
On the other hand, Archive.org’s been there since, wow, a decade? (at least for netlabels – the wayback machine I think was before that).
There are always trade-offs. Bandcamp’s widgets are easy to use – easy to collect money on a pay what you want model. Archive.org doesn’t collect money.
Soundcloud provides all the audio tools most people need, and the ability to link to a site to purchase.
Something new will come along, it’s the internet.
…
Who am I? First off – that’s a great Jackie Chan movie. Secondly – I’m the guy that blogs under the “Kinetoscope” titles here at Public Spaces Lab and I own a “commercial” music label called Relaxed Machinery. I run the label a little “weird” in the sense that I don’t make any money off of my artists on their solo and collab albums. They “self release” through CD Baby and/or other places – and keep all of their sales.
I wrote a blog a while back on all the tools and sites that we use at Relaxed Machinery. The key thing for us is that as new sites/tools/etc. pop up – we’ll embrace them – and others will drop by the wayside. It’s just the nature of the internet and the music “business” as it stands right now. Change and evolve along with the times, or get lost…
http://lab.pubspaces.com/2010/07/kinetoscope-021-rm-world-view-2/
John
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*Snore…*
Whining?
Over a service which gives you so much for free?
Have you forgotten amiestreet? They’re dead because they didn’t do what bandcamp are doing. That’s why they’re dead. They died.
They have to monetise their bandwidth somehow, so just suck it up and be grateful for fuck sake.
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I have not as yet posted any music on bandcamp, nor has my netlabel used it for hosting our releases. I am not offended that bandcamp altered its revenue model to charge for use of its services. I had assumed that the free music on bandcamp would increase the number of views by potential music purchasers, and this would more than offset the expense of hosting the free download material. Bandcamp instead changed (and then reduced the negative effect of the change a bit) its pricing model. In so doing, bandcamp basically followed the theory that the users attracted to the site by free music were less likely to be a revenue stream which would offset the expense of hosting the free downloads. I suspect that Bandcamp’s theory may be in error–but I freely confess that bandcamp’s revenues and expenses are better known to them than to me.
The lesson I draw from this situation is that services like bandcamp are never “compadres” in the search to share music, but instead are unbundled artist services–more like the digital equivalent of a CDR duplicator than the profit-based equivalent of archive.org.
I think that similarly, for artists it is not a matter of sentiment one way or the other. If hosting can be obtained elsewhere, for free, then
why use Bandcamp?
Curiously, I could imaging to Bandcamp–but without any illusions that it is anything but an unbundled and non-free artist service.
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i know exactly how to give away your music for free! create your own website and dont rely on a third party to do it for you. simple as that. you see the real problem lies within the fact that most artists dont want to have to pay the small amount of money to create a forum for their music to be heard.
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