Overview of Bandcamp features

General
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When researching for #BeYourOwnPlatform in may 2024 I wrote down all features that I think Bandcamp offers - in order to understand the differentiation from other platforms and how they correspond to their Fair Music Policy. I talked about these features only in Dresden but not in subsequent presentations. I felt like this list might be of interest to others

artist accounts

  • creating a page and uploading music is completely free
  • creating a fan account is free
  • no limit of paid downloads
  • free downloads (200/m, or 1000 for each 500$ earned)
  • name your price system
  • fan can pay more than base price
  • Creative Commons licences
  • pre-orders
  • bonus tracks and other files with downloads
  • lyrics and track-based webcovers
  • embeding player on external web pages / blogs
  • download codes
  • custom domain
  • public view of number of supporters/buyers of a release
  • commenting/reviewing system by buyers of a releasese
  • sell merchandize / physical media (shipped by the artist)
  • selling tickets for live video streaming events
  • subscriptions / recurring payments
  • fine grained management of releases that go to subscribers
  • crowdfunded ondemand vinyl production (not available anymore)
  • immediate (1-3 days) payments to artists PayPal account
  • transparent fees (10%-15% by BC)
  • paid pro artist plan (10$/m, video, bulk uploads)
  • streaming of tracks can be limited (pro)
  • private streaming of tracks with easy to set up private links (pro)
  • video hosting for each track
  • live video streaming with a ā€œmerch tableā€ and a chat
  • paid label accounts ($20/m <15 artists, $50/m for unlimited artists)
  • a release on the label is a part of artists page and is listed on both catalogues (artistā€™s and labelā€™s)
  • artists ā€˜underā€™ label accounts automatically have a pro artist account for free
  • artists can be part of multiple labels
  • artists can use their pro account (from label) for their own releases independently from labels

fans/buyers accounts

  • music collection of bought items, streamable
  • wishlist (easily populated with ā€˜heartingā€™ a release)
  • fan playlists (private to fan account and exclusive to mobile app)
  • downloads in wide range of formats for the same price and without DRM
  • mobile app for fans/buyers with their digital collections, player, playlists, and discovery
  • mobile app for artists for artists management, view of sales, plays, messaging to fans
  • featured / new releases streams in the fan app (discovery)
  • listening party as a lightweight streaming of new release
  • ability to follow an artist on the platform in addition to opt-in email collection
  • ability to follow other fans/buyers and their purchases
  • simple messaging system for communication between the artist and followers/buyers
  • expansive weekly radio podcast and a daily blog publication that continuously featured music scenes under the radar and also were clear about how to submit your music for consideration.

current relevant links:

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The wishlist & following are my most used features. I do the music discovery elsewhere (Fedi, blogs) and this is how I keep track of what Iā€™ve found!

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This is great!

What Iā€™m curious about is how many of these features can be facilitated on the client side, and/or in a direct listener-to-artist way, with no aggregator in the middle (as the centralized aggregator is the thing with the bundled operating costs and business agenda).

For example a wishlist could be a text file or a subfolder in browser bookmarks; a follow can be an RSS subscription. Of course, that way isnā€™t as fancy, and becomes intermixed with all the other things people use files and bookmarks and feeds for, thus attention becomes more diluted.

It brings me back to the idea of implementing some of these things as plugins for existing open source music player apps.

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I recently read that Bandcamp also includes Royalty Collector, which they havenā€™t done before. You can find more about this in their FAQ or Help. I also talked about this with an Bandcamp Employe which remarks their are in Discussion for example with Gema

https://get.bandcamp.help/hc/en-us/articles/27168777857047-Publishing-Royalty-Collection-On-Bandcamp

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And now, playlists. Given how most TSMN devs look at Bandcamp as a reference, I hope this move contributes indirectly to Fair and autonomous playlists.

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Please note: The following is not intended as an attack on any of these awesome projects or the people behind them. Itā€™s a Use eXperience story, intended to illustrate a series of points (see the Takeaway sections below).

As I mentioned it on the thread about discoverability, the main things I use BandCamp for are search and sample listening. Classic example, just now while doing a web search for something else, I stumbled on a debut album by a Canadian band called Penny Diving, via the homepage of the label releasing it;

Iā€™d like to find out where I can listen to some of their songs, to see what I think of them. Normally Iā€™d search for them on BandCamp (or YouTub), because itā€™s the place I most consistently get useful results. But as an experiments, letā€™s try listening another way.

Takeaway: Nobody ever pays for music weā€™ve never heard. Except maybe live, if weā€™re going with a friend whoā€™s a big fan.

I look around the page for a listening post, or a link to one, but my attention gets hijacked by the colourful popup at bottom-right, trying to social engineer me into giving it my email address. Ick.

Takeaway: Donā€™t use Deceptive Patterns in your pages. Whether on your own band or label homepage, or on discovery platforms and other service portals. If want contact information, just straight up say so, and tell me exactly what you do and donā€™t intend to use it for.

At least the popup goes away when I click close, but the page still has no way for me to listen, just a bunch of ways to pay. But ā€¦ why would I pay when I have no idea if I like the music yet?

Takeaway: Put a listening post in the place where the payment happens. Ideally create a flow from general info page > simple listening experience > payment invitation.

Given itā€™s basically just a vending machine with no products in it, how do I know it really represents the band, and that any payment I make here goes to them? For all I know if could be a scam site.

Takeaway: There needs to be a reliable and standardised way to link indentities with works online. Using 2-way rel-me links to connect social network accounts with homepages is useful. Of course thatā€™s less necessary if youā€™re on FunkWhale or BandWagon, because your homepage is in a social network, the fediverse.

So I go try to look it up on FunkWhale. Nothing on open.audio, the flagship service. Is it worth trying others, which ones? No sign of a search bar on funkwhale.audio, am I meant to search FW from Mastodon? Try that, tumbleweeds. BandWagon.fm? Nope. Mirlo? Nada. OpenVerse.org? Zip. Jam.coop? Canā€™t see a search bar ā€¦

Takeaway When music on non-corporate hosting is fragmented across many, tiny services, which must be search individually, most of the results will be disappointing. Even as a determined supporter, this experience is not a replacement for a BandCamp or a Spotify. I need to be able to go to one of many music discovery portals, and get some kind of useful result most times, or Iā€™ll stop coming back. Federated search is the way to do that.