July 19, 2011 : Bandcamp vs. Jamendo

[nyjm]

So, Josh Woodward just one a fancy prize (read: $500) for the Pop music category over on Jamendo. I had never heard of this site before today, but I'm a big fan of Creative Commons and "Free Music," so I started checking it out.

It seems like this service / site is pretty similar to Bandcamp, an artist-driven, easy-to-use method for distributing your digital music. A quick overview reveals a few differences: uploads to Jamendo are moderated, and it's possible to make some money on Jamendo just from ad revenue. You can even have a "radio" created once you contribute enough. Bandcamp seems a lot less focused on the "non-royalty music" thing, but it's still an option - and I'd wager a pretty popular one, though there are plenty of pure professionals there with full copyright on their stuff.

So, Question of the Day: Bandcamp vs. Jamendo: big differences? your preference? Other artists you know / love / despise on either service?

I have a Bandcamp account, and I'm really pretty happy with it, since the interface is simple but allows me a lot of leeway for copyright, downloading, etc. It's loads better than ReverbNation's overwhelming UI but more sophisticated than SoundClick.

[fluffy]

I hadn't heard of Jamendo before either. It looks like they're in completely different product areas, though, so it's sort of a false dichotomy to pit them against each other. BandCamp is just a commerce facilitator and music-focused CMS, while Jamendo is a music exploration/sharing site.

I will definitely be signing up for Jamendo and seeing how my music does there.

[nyjm]

Yeah, there's definitely a clear sense of community and interaction present on Jamendo. Maybe we should compare it more to SoundClick...

[Billy's Little Trip]

I'm not a member of either, so I can't say. I know Ranger Denni is and that's where she leaves her files for the songs we've been working on.

What are the benefits of being on these sites?

[fluffy]

I really like BandCamp as a sales channel, because it makes it very very easy for me to do digital sales of individual tracks, complete albums, and bonus content (artwork, hidden tracks, etc.), and the audio files have really good metadata tagging including lyrics and so on. They handle all the nitty-gritty of sales and so on, and you can also do things like download codes (which you can sell or give away to people), and they also make it easy to sell physical items (CDs, shirts, etc.) as well. Your BandCamp site also has an RSS feed that people can subscribe to in order to be notified of any new songs or albums that you release. You can also set pay-what-you-want (optionally with no minimum) pricing.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Ok, I'm the proud owner of a brand spanking new bouncing baby bandcamp.

What do you guys set for the licensing part?

[nyjm]

What do you guys set for the licensing part?

Normally, I don't sell my music at all, but since Bandcamp does have 200 D/L cap before you have to pay them for bandwidth, my default is streaming only. (But you can download my latest album - and certain tracks for SpinTunes).

For liscensing specifically, I use CC BY-SA 3.0 (Creative Commons Attribute Share Alike), which is basically "Please tell people I made this originally, and if you muck with it and pass it around, you have distribute it for free, too."

In related by wholy different news, I just found discovered Spotify. Spiffy. And if you distribute via CDBaby, you're already in their library.

[ujnhunter]

BandCamp is my favorite of all the sites our music is on. I love the stats it keeps and you can see where people are coming from to listen to your music. Jamendo's (which I just heard of yesterday...) interface is borked or something because I can't get it to show my songs... SoundClick's (also just heard of...) interface seems clunkly. I'd say BandCamp, SoundCloud & ReverbNation are my favorites.

[roymond]

I like the straight forward approach that Bandcamp has, but they do very little to help promote your music, nor do they help listeners discover music (their tags are not very helpful, and you can't "exclude" tags in the filters). My sister in law works there and says they are going to offer new functionality soon but can't talk about it.

[Manhattan Glutton]

Jamendo's FAQ is all in UK currency. Will they run off with my music and my money because they are a shady off-shore operation?

[Manhattan Glutton]

Alright, my UK joke went over like a lead balloon.

But seriously - which do I pick? I'm only uploading this stuff to one place.

[Chadderandom]

I'd go with bandcamp if you ever want to see any money. Apparently the sales there go directly to you while people sending you money at jamendo goes to them for safe keeping until you've reached $100, then you make a request for it and I've heard people having problems requesting their money. I wish I could really try bandcamp, to see if it's better but I don't want to direct people there because they might actually spend money which means the $40 or so I've made at jamendo will never be seen by me because it would take even longer to get to 100, so I'm kind of committed to jamendo until I can request money at which point I'll probably opt out of any option to make money there.

Oh, a point against bandcamp is that you can seemingly only upload one song at a time and that just feels like a lot of effort... which is why I've only made $40 from jamendo because self promotion takes a lot of effort too. I mean, seriously, effort, who needs it?

[Manhattan Glutton]

Wait, people actually make money off this crazy hobby? How much money can I make???

I'm in it mostly because I don't want to program a website and it's time I started sharing.

It seems like jamendo is better promotion-wise, but someone mentioned bandcamp might be getting that... but is the promotion worth it?

[fluffy]

Oh, a point against bandcamp is that you can seemingly only upload one song at a time and that just feels like a lot of effort...

You actually can upload multiple songs at a time, by opening multiple tabs for each song. It's kind of a pain though. I've suggested a multiple-file uploader to their support guys and they've said they're working on that but it's a low priority since it's a "nice to have," not a vital function.

Anyway, Jamendo might allow multiple simultaneous uploads but once they ARE uploaded, the interface for ordering and tagging your songs is fucking ridiculous; you can't just specify the order of songs, you have to individually swap them until they're in the right order - a manual bubble sort, using lots of ridiculously fiddly tiny easy-to-miss click targets. I'd rather take Bandcamp's brand of inefficiency over Jamendo's.

[Manhattan Glutton]

Bandcamp has a 200/month download limit. Not that I anticipate getting famous, but that's kind of ... weird.

[fluffy]

That's just for free downloads. Bandwidth does cost money, after all. You can also buy more downloads if you want. Or you can just, you know, charge money for them.

[Manhattan Glutton]

Hmm, so why don't I just set up my own webpage with download links and donate buttons?

[fluffy]

That is always an option, of course. Bandcamp is nice for their really good metadata tagging and multiple format support and so on but if you just want to be donation-based then there's nothing wrong with rolling your own. Bandcamp is more set up for people who want to sell their music without a lot of hassle and don't have strong web-fu, or want a nice straightforward shopping cart system for physical goods or whatever.