I don’t know how to feel about the #Bandcamp situation. It certainly doesn’t decrease my disdain for Epic Games, and I’m disgusted by Songtradr’s stance of “supporting the band camp community is our top priority but let’s fire half the staff.”
But what’s the alternative? Isn’t it the only well-known music platform that doesn’t screw over musicians? Are there other places where I can launch a vinyl release for no upfront cost? Control my pricing?
@killyourfm it's the same sticky problem that all artists have "how do we make our work accessible and get paid for it?"
Centralized platforms have a huge advantage when it comes to discoverability, so maybe something community-owned with bylaws that prevent it from being trivially bought out by corporate interests?
@killyourfm I keep thinking about itch.io having potential. It's mostly games but there is music and other non-game things on there too. Itch doesn't even take a minimum commission on sales. They let creators choose how much if any they want to give to itch to support the platform. Itch might actually have a real opportunity to grow here if they put some effort into music.
@killyourfm Musicians have never been in control of their industry.
Therein lies the rub. ;-/
Bandcamp was a best effort, but p2p put the writing on the wall long before.
If you care about distribution that is optimized, and agnostic of what data is being distributed, BitTorrent got things correct and it's hard to improve upon meaningfully for bandwidth optimization.
If you care about monetization, that is where payola/entrenched "biz" music industry was, and still is and presumably always will be.
If you care about art.
Well, almost no one actually does. They may say they do, but they don't, not really.
That is where rando turntablist deejays such as I sink ungodly amounts of money into releases so rare they sometimes aren't even in double digits and when we spin, dance floors are almost always empty, but the few who are part of our audience, continue to thank us even weeks later for blowing their minds, yet again. I have some releases on pre-order from over a year ago, who knows when I may get them? But, I do what I can to support similar beyond the galaxy creative sorts as best I can and still struggle with patience and finances.
Don't get me wrong, Bandcamp streamlined music purchases online better than just about anyone else, but I never stopped diggin in the crates, going to local music shops and shows, and no one who actually cares about music deeply should ever rely on any one source. Apple is currently the biggest on Earth and despite FINALLY open sourcing ALAC, you cannot buy lossless audio from Apple, at all. It's a disgrace.
@daswickerman Absolutely. And I would support that however I could. Unfortunately, I don’t know the first thing about building it or even who to rally together to build it
@killyourfm Yeah, I know enough to guide that kind of project, but I'm not a programmer and have a day job so my time would be limited. I imagine we could rally people to the cause. I heard there's a wealth of former bandcamp staff looking for work.
@killyourfm Definitely. I'm talking to a few people about it and if we can come up with something viable, I'll make sure you know. Really just following the Mastodon model, with revenue share off sales to cover server costs (and maintaining a large percentage back to the artist) would be ideal. Plus, activitypub integration for easier sharing and cross-platform integration.
@AimeeMaroux@killyourfm Looks interesting, but there's a TON of scope there. It does feel like they're biting off more than necessary to solve this specific problem, but there's definitely potential!
@AimeeMaroux@killyourfm Absolutely! the basic plan for Aural Isle is interesting. I would be concerned about competing priorities across the overall "revolutionize all media" strategy cutting into development of a truly robust bandcamp alternative but at this point I'm more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt!
@daswickerman@killyourfm if this gets traction and you could use a hand on the product/project side I'd be interested, I already have a couple volunteer software projects but this feels like it's achingly possible if resourced. I could draw up a plan for it tomorrow. Do the whole thing on the Fedi model and add an optional Patreon style layer. Kill the middleman totally, bands/labels pay the costs and keep all revenue (with running the server as an operating expense)
Possible, I did not check recently. If Funkwhale doesn't have the full range of features on board a consideration is to see whether it is possible to have multiple #Fediverse projects be combined and integrated to save work.
Note that @GuildAlpha (part of Social Coding Movement) recently started working on #LibRate which might be an added service for #Funkwhale (just brainstorming ya know ;)
"Resonate is the first community-owned music streaming service — a multi-stakeholder platform co-operative, democratically governed by our members: artists, listeners, and workers."
"Resonate is the first community-owned music streaming service — a multi-stakeholder platform co-operative, democratically governed by our members: artists, listeners, and workers."
@mrcompletely@smallcircles@killyourfm@RyunoKi@daswickerman@ahoneybun@funkwhale@freebliss Really, discovery is the main problem for most of us. If there was a Fedi client that had a music player, able to extract streaming audio with something like NewPipeExtractor … then we could follow artists, friends with good music taste, genre hashtags, and stick things in a playlist to discover new music 💜
Existing Masto functionality like bookmarking would be perfect for a “Wishlist”
@narF@meljoann@smallcircles@killyourfm@RyunoKi@daswickerman@ahoneybun@funkwhale@freebliss I don't think there's any need for any corporate middleman at all. If the platform is FOSS, then like a mastodon server, the artists/labels just need to rent infrastructure to run it on. Every artist/label would just own their own "bandcamp page" or pages. To me completely killing the corporate middleman is why it would be better than bandcamp (plus a Patreon style feature would be cool)
@RyunoKi@narF@meljoann@smallcircles@killyourfm@daswickerman@ahoneybun@funkwhale@freebliss integration with third party payment providers is an absolute bedrock core requirement of a notional BC replacement. I agree recurring payments are an additional twist that adds difficulty and it's likely that feature would be post MVP and could fall out. But think what a killer feature for artists: stable monthly income! For most musicians that would be a dream come true, hard to overstate value
IMO Resonate actually gets like 90% of the way there. The support model is excellent with automatic purchase once you hit a threshold. It's also a co-op so if it actually does the trick I'd hesitate to put energy into a competitor rather than focus on improvement of that platform.
One note on Resonate. It looks like the project is in slight disarray with multiple board members resigning and some general frustration. It might be something to fork rather than join outright.
@mrcompletely@RyunoKi@narF@meljoann@smallcircles@killyourfm@ahoneybun@funkwhale@freebliss
I think it's probably important to look at it in terms of stakeholder requirements. Recurring revenue is a platform imperative but wouldn't necessarily rank above a feature that would drive adoption, at least to start. The revenue split required to handle that overhead would be higher, and would probably have a breakeven point for artists and the collective that would need to be taken into account.
@daswickerman@RyunoKi@narF@meljoann@smallcircles@killyourfm@ahoneybun@funkwhale@freebliss certainly I could see it as post MVP/non core. But perhaps we're missing a shared premise. The version of this project that interests me has no revenue split ever. It's a Fediverse FOSS platform. There would no middle entity at all; all expense is borne by the artist, and the artist receives all revenue. I respect other ideas but to me killing the middleman is the core improvement over BC.
@mrcompletely@RyunoKi@narF@meljoann@smallcircles@killyourfm@ahoneybun@funkwhale@freebliss
Sure, I think having an open source option works for that, but I also don't think most artists - and especially indie artists have the time or expertise to run a distribution platform in addition to creating music, touring, and holding down a day job or six. The "business model" is to serve those stakeholders rather than the established artist who can afford to run their own system.
@daswickerman@RyunoKi@narF@meljoann@smallcircles@killyourfm@ahoneybun@funkwhale@freebliss aren't bandcamp artists already doing their own distribution? If you mean running the platform itself I think they would in exchange for the additional revenue and control, especially that monthly revenue idea. Server providers could offer turnkey options for a fee of course. Recreating another centralized failure point seems like the wrong long term strategy to me.
@mrcompletely@RyunoKi@narF@meljoann@smallcircles@killyourfm@ahoneybun@funkwhale@freebliss
Physical distribution, yes. That's a relatively low-tech process - package and ship merch. Bandcamp is providing the addresses and payment remit for that process, but the bigger lift is the streaming and discovery that gets people to buy your merch in the first place. A Co-Op model based on a low cost pay-as-you-play-to-own mechanism to support that admin work seems like an elegant solution.
@daswickerman@RyunoKi@narF@meljoann@smallcircles@killyourfm@ahoneybun@funkwhale@freebliss yeah the platform needs to manage streaming and downloads and the physical merch sales/info pipeline per instance. Discovery to me is the biggest question in a fully decentralized model, but if you're fully federated you'd get all those network effects. A mastodon or lemmy user could follow a band's site/account, boost or link to their posts, etc. I feel like there's a solution lurking in there
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