🔵 Attempting a balanced look at Bandcamp's predicament

With half the workforce just laid off, is it over for the much-loved platform?

Hi there,

News broke overnight that Songtradr, the new owner of Bandcamp, has made approximately 50% of the latter’s workforce redundant as part of the acquisition process. Anecdotally (i.e. in that Songtradr hasn’t confirmed as much), it seems the most affected parts of the business are editorial, technical development and senior staff.

Naturally, this development has prompted a lot of chatter, concern and anger among different quarters, so I wanted to take a moment to try and appraise what’s going on from (ideally) a more balanced standpoint.

Songtradr claims in its press release that costs have “significantly increased” and that these cutbacks are largely addressing that to ensure “ensure a sustainable and healthy company that can serve its community of artists and fans”.

I believe under Epic’s ownership, Bandcamp had grown a fair bit, purely because Epic was investing into the business in a bid to develop it further. I recall quite a bullish demeanour among the people I chatted to who worked there, because Epic’s investment meant various things could be fixed and new features could be added, such as the relatively recent listening party option.

That being said, I am not certain Bandcamp doubled in size during Epic’s brief ownership, meaning these cutbacks may represent more than just an adjustment back to a previous state.

Equally, the cuts made to Bandcamp’s editorial sound severe, and if true this is certainly a PR own goal if not a critical error of judgement longer-term. Bandcamp has long been celebrated precisely because it invested into journalism around music, and often in niche areas that its users genuinely valued, given the degree to which music journalism elsewhere has been put to the sword.

Reducing this would threaten quite a large aspect of Bandcamp’s platform (i.e. its superb editorial that is capable of driving meaningful sales) and in doing so, would fly in the face of the new owners claims when it says it is “committed to keeping the existing Bandcamp services that fans and artists love, including its artist-first revenue share, Bandcamp Fridays and Bandcamp Daily.”

Cutting the editorial output (or reducing the quality thereof) may prove a serious error in the long term if it it erodes a cornerstone that not only greatly aided discovery, but which also helped many DIY artists generate meaningful revenue via the site’s editorial support.

Alongside all of the above is the thorny topic of the Bandcamp staff’s efforts to unionise. I’ve no idea how many people who were let go were part of Bandcamp United, but I suspect more than 50% of the United staff will be affected. I doubt Songtradr will have let every one of them go, but I still feel it will have sought to undermine Bandcamp United, albeit quietly.

That’s not to paint Songtradr as the big baddie in all of this. An accepted aspect of capitalism is that companies generally do not like unions, and will (almost) always resist attempts by staff to unionise. Ergo, when acquiring a company and with an option to not employ all/any of the staff in that process, there is a clear logic that the company will attempt to weed out those pushing for unionisation.

To be clear, I am not saying Songtradr is doing this. Nor am I saying I approve of it. I am simply stating the uncomfortable truth that such an approach would, from a business perspective, make a degree of sense.

What will be interesting to see now is how Songtradr weathers this storm. Check social media right now and the sentiment is universally negative. The detractors are owning the narrative and Songtradr has yet to comment. The fact I’ve had three people send me a link to a command line tool to download your entire Bandcamp collection in one go speaks volumes; clearly people are being whipped up into a sense that the end is nigh.

With that in mind, Songtradr has some serious work to do in winning over the Bandcamp community, and that is something it needs to do very, very carefully - and ideally ASAP. As many businesses have learned to their cost, a platform is nothing without its users, and if the heart and soul of Bandcamp feels like it has been ripped out, the artist community will look for alternatives. Songtradr needs to respond with more insight on what has happened, as well as perhaps some positive updates on what it is planning to do. Fail, and the detractors continue to own the narrative here.

I said this last week and it might be worth repeating: at its heart, Bandcamp is an amazing platform. It may be entering rough waters under Songtradr’s ownership. Equally, it might not; we should be mindful not to judge too quickly here, however today’s news looks. I would say however that right now Songtradr needs to look at that community and figure out how it can win over some trust. Simply stating that you are committed to a platform is not enough. Actions always speak louder than words, and after today, Songtradr needs some positive actions to counter the negative ones.

Have a great evening,

D.

🎶 listening to “Strange Overtones” by David Byrne & Brian Eno. If you’ve never heard this wonderful, uplifting earworm of a song, you’re in for a treat. I still remember hearing it for the first time, after which I played it on repeat for longer than is healthy. Arguably one of Byrne’s finest songs post-Talking Heads.

📺 watching “Michael Kiwanuka: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert”. I’m not sure how I missed this during the pandemic when it was released, but it’s a gem of a thing that I wish would get released as an EP. MK’s voice is a wonder to me; I could listen to him sing the alphabet and it would be glorious. Stripped down to just him and a guitar, I’d argue this is proof of the quality of the man’s songwriting. Stunning. (Rediscovered via

Nelson George

‘s excellent newsletter - highly recommended!)

🤖 playing with Insight Face Swap, a AI face swapper bot in Discord that - based on my tests anyway - does a pretty stunning job of swapping faces into Midjourney-created images. Example? Here you go. 😆

Stories from the Music Industry:

Bandcamp Hit With Layoffs After Songtradr Acquisition

In a statement, Songtradr confirmed that it has completed its acquisition of Bandcamp and continued: “Over the past few years the operating costs of Bandcamp have significantly increased. It required some adjustments to ensure a sustainable and healthy company that can serve its community of artists and fans. After a comprehensive evaluation, including the importance of roles for smooth business operations and pre existing functions at Songtradr, 50% of Bandcamp employees have accepted offers to join Songtradr.

👆🏻Hot take: per comments above, it is now time Songtradr shows what positive momentum it can bring to Bandcamp after so much negative press through these actions.

Music has become a ‘just-in-time’ economy

We are at the point where there needs to be a duty of care to creators, from both distributors and platforms. This starts with selling the right dream. Some artists may only ever have a thousand fans (or fewer) who want to listen to their music. That should be embraced as an aspirational goal, not failure. Service offerings should be geared around helping creators understand what their realistic (but aspirational) goals should be, and helping them achieve them. Not a nudge and a wink implication that they can all become superstars.

👆🏻Hot take: I couldn’t agree more. The tail is now wagging the dog.

Spotify is launching a personalized in-app Merch Hub

“The new merch hub on Spotify is the first-ever merch shopping experience that is tailored to an individual’s listening habits and fandom,” said Heather Ellis, Product Marketing Manager of Fan Monetization at Spotify, in an emailed statement. “Spotify pulls personalized recommendations for you, specifically, into your merch hub experience, so offerings from your favorite artists find you – not the other way around.”

👆🏻Hot take: for the reasons stated in last week’s NN, I just don’t see this working. Nobody buys merch on Spotify, and I don’t feel this will change that.

US senators launch No Fakes Act to tackle ‘AI-generated replicas’

Specifically it would “prevent a person from producing or distributing an unauthorized AI-generated replica of an individual to perform in an audiovisual or sound recording without the consent of the individual being replicated”. If they do it, they would be “liable for the damages caused by the AI-generated fake”. Oh, and platforms would also be held liable for hosting these unauthorised replicas “if the platform has knowledge of the fact that the replica was not authorized by the individual depicted”.

👆🏻Hot take: worldwide laws need to evolve to accommodate the changes we’re seeing with AI, and this is a perfect example of that. No bad thing IMO.

Major record companies hate AI voice-cloning platforms that don’t pay. The one they hate most was created by a 20-year-old UK student.

If the record industry does decide to legally pursue Bansal, the bigger question will be precisely what they’re pursuing him for. The RIAA’s statement on Voicify.ai and similar services makes it clear that it sees cloning of artists’ voices as a violation of the right of publicity. This refers to an intellectual property right that protects against the unauthorized use of a person’s likeness, voice or other aspects of their identity. The problem here is that – unlike copyright laws, which exist in most jurisdictions – the right of publicity isn’t uniformly recognized under the law worldwide.

👆🏻Hot take: this really speaks to the article above it. Whilst opinions differ on whether a company like Voicify could successfully be sued, the reality is that better laws are needed to protect artists in this space, such that matter would be more black and white.

Stories from the Broader World of Tech

The Chatbots Are Now Talking to Each Other

The three bots are among scores of AI characters that have been developed by Fantasy, a New York company that helps businesses such as LG, Ford, Spotify, and Google dream up and test new product ideas. Fantasy calls its bots synthetic humans and says they can help clients learn about audiences, think through product concepts, and even generate new ideas, like the soccer app.

👆🏻Hot take: amazing, or dystopian beyond belief? Curious to hear thoughts… I can see the use case, but I’m cautious as to how much one might rely upon that given the notorious weak spots of AI in general.

Google launches measures to safeguard generative AI users from copyright claims

“If you are challenged on copyright grounds, we will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved,” Google said in a blog post. Google explained that the IP indemnity that it is offering “means that you can use content generated with a range of our products knowing Google will indemnify you for third-party IP claims, including copyright — assuming your company is following responsible AI practices.”

👆🏻Hot take: quite the move from Google here. It is certainly a bold statement around the issues of working with AI and the problems that is creating for people.

X’s Sneaky New Ads Might Be Illegal

“There’s really no doubt to us that X’s lack of disclosure here misleads consumers,” says Sarah Kay Wiley, policy and partnerships director at Check My Ads, an ad industry watchdog group. “Consumers are simply not able to differentiate what is content and what is not paid content. Even I’ve been duped, and I work in this space.”

👆🏻Hot take: as each day passes I just marvel at how X is allowed to get away with all the things it does. How it has not been closed down by now baffles me.

Need something else to read? Here you go:

Why Culture Has Come to a Standstill

A Times critic argues that ours is the least innovative century for the arts in 500 years. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

👆🏻Hot take: I mildly depressing read in some respects, if only because I agree with the points being made. Are we living in a constant now? Potentially so.

Your Sweaters Are Garbage

In The quality of knitwear has cratered. Even expensive sweaters have lost their hefty, lush glory.

👆🏻Hot take: well who knew - turns out the quality of our sweaters have been getting worse and worse over the years

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