3d ago

Any alternatives for bandcamp.com?

Hello there 👋

I am following the path of decreasing dependency on US products myself, and I was wondering if there is any real alternative for bandcamp? Meaning, the one that would be a proper marketplace for niche music creators, that would allow DRM-free downloads and streaming at the same time.

Bottom line: I do want to pay for music I like to support musicians, though I want to do it in a way that would allow me to listen to their work in a way I like the most.

23 comments

The qobuz store has DRM free downloads.
- I've been using the free trial of Qobuz for a streaming service the last few days (boycot spotify!), and after some initial struggles setting up the account, I'm pretty happy with it!
  Does anyone know anything about the ethics of the company?
  
  They pay the highest in the streaming industry apparently. 1¢-4¢ per stream depending on region and other factors. For comparison, spotify pays 0.3¢ with very exploitative thresholds to avoid playing small artists.

Bandwagon is an attempt to make a federated social media for artists. Who knows if it'll succeed, but checking out the artists on the platform would be a first step. :)
The artists link whatever services they like, which in a way I think is nice. Personally I don't like paying for digital files, so my music expenses are mostly spent on vinyl records. The artists are probably not left with much after all the shipping, the vinyl, the cellophane lining, the high gloss, the tape, and the gear, but at least I end up with something that's mine.
As others have mentioned, Qobuz is a French company running a DRM-free music store.
- Totally with you on vinyl, though some music is not available in vinyl at all. So, I’d prefer to have an alternative if possible :)
- i like ampwall but it is US based
  
  It is and I totally get why this community can't support it but if the aim is to avoid big US brands, Ampwall is not that. It is created and developed by musicians in a DIY environment. If you're familiar with the Black Metal band Woe then you might be reassured to know that the founder of Woe is that developer. It is owned under a license that is not profit driven and has civic and environmental issues built in.
  As I say, I'm aware that this is still technically a US brand but it is not some huge multinational. It is fairer to artists than Bandcamp and many of the artists on Ampwall are European.
  
  Yeah, I edited my comment after realizing which community I was in and reading up on Ampwell. Oops. :)
- Someone mentioned funkwhale on a different thread - full disclosure, I've not actually used it. It seems to also be federated, although it looks more like a way for artists to publish their music without the need for record companies?
  
  Yeah, Funkwhale is more of a defederated music/audio publishing platform. It's good, but I find it somewhat challenging to discover music there.
  For those who remember Grooveshark, Funkwhale is a bit of a spiritual successor.
- Bandwagon looks cool, but do they have a feature to pay artists like bandcamp? Or even a "name your price (aka quasi free)"?
  
  Under the "coming soon" section, they state the following:
  We're deep into building the Bandwagon Roadmap, including even better music discovery and publishing tools And online album sales are close behind.
  So it seems the idea is to provide a way for artists to sell their albums. I'm curious what it'll look like in practice - I guess they're still trying to work that out themselves as well. :)

Hello,
I see people are suggesting a conventional streaming platform. I'm sure you know but this is NOT a replacement for Bandcamp.
Catalogues of streaming platforms are, in vast majority, owned by one of the three major labels which are all US companies. While I do think Qobuz is a vastly better choice than Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, etc, most of your subscription money will probably end up lining the pockets of those three US conglomerates (Sony Music, Warner Corp., Universal), even if you only listen to independent artists.
While with Bandcamp, most of the money you spend on the platform goes directly to the artists (Bandcamp takes 10% IIRC).
Bandcamp is indeed a US company, owned by another US company Epic Games (Unreal Engine, Fortnite...) of which the largest shareholder and CEO is yet another US billionaire (Tim Sweeney). They are definitely worthy of boycott however it is worth mentioning that Sweeney has called out other tech billionaires courting Trump and has put rather serious money towards the conservation of nature reserves. I do not think we should consider him our friend in any way, but he seems about as decent as billionaires can get.
Anyways, I think the best would be to reach out directly to the artists to ask them if they can sell their music to you directly or if they have an alternative non US platform where you can actually buy their music for meaningful money (rather than stream it on Qobuz where you will end up paying them fractions of cents.)
I wouldn't fret over it too much if you continue paying artists through Bandcamp. If you are buying music from European artists on that platform, I'm nearly 100% certain than more of your money will stay in Europe than if you pay for a conventional European streaming service like Qobuz or Spotify instead.
- Slight correction epic sold bandcamp in 2023 to Songtradr. Which isn't great as they're a huge music licencing org that I suspect will ruin bandcamp eventually.
- Also worth noting bandcamp has something called "bandcamp Fridays" which they waive their share of revenue and pass it to the artists. Here is a post with the dates of 2025. If you do still want to buy from bandcamp and can wait for albums then set a reminder.
- fyi you can also purchase music from the qobuz website, and they let you stream/download purchased music from their app without a subscription. So if you only want to support certain artists, that could be a way? I think they don’t have as much niche content as bandcamp, though; the way they populate their content is much more akin to the other mainstream streaming services, so it’s not quite as easy/direct for artists to add content.
- Thanks for a very considerate and informed answer! This one is really helpful and actually addresses my thoughts ;)

You could also buy cds if the songs are not available on Qobuz.

Some already mentioned Qobuz. I started using it about a month ago, as Spotify paid to Trump's inauguration and sponsored some party for him. Qobuz pays artists a lot better then Spotify does, the streams are high quality, and it's a French company. Also they have a very good service to transfer all your spotify artists, playlists, songs etc towards Qobuz.

Adding a link to a thread with the same question awhile back, might also contain helpful info: https://feddit.uk/post/25034087. sadly it was a short thread.

Here to vouch for Qobuz. They've had quite a few artists that Bandcamp has not had, and they pay artists well. DRM-free too. The only hassle is bulk downloading (I use a tampermonkey script to help with this). Its not possible with the website(unless you use a script) and requires their proprietary downloader app which doesn't support Linux yet.

Bandcamp did nothing wrong

23 comments