there is nothing
but haters gonna hate as usual

Music downloads in different formats are DRM-free for several years now. There was a massive protest of music fans against copy protections on CDs (keyword: rootkits) and DRMed music downloads up to the point where it was completely removed. The last store that changed it was iTunes in 2009:
https://www.macworld.com/article/194277/itunestore.html
For their DRMed music files before 2009 there are ways to remove the DRM:
https://www.lifewire.com/apple-fairplay-drm-limits-for-intunes-songs-2438179


I don't see Epic Games suddenly changing this and adding DRM to the music downloads. The big stores like Amazon or the mentioned iTunes don't have it.

Sorry, it’s not like itch. Has a much simpler interface that is easy to use and find things.

Bandcamp also provides immediate download of what you buy, proper drm free. And has a lot of things you won’t find elsewhere.

As with anything digital, if you do not download immediately and backup yourself, there is always the risk you will lose it, that is the way things outside your control works. As I always say, if you want to be drm (and more importantly control) free then you also have to take responsibility for it. No point complaining it’s gone when you had all the opportunity to get it and store it.

Sure, Epic being involved makes it a whole lot more unattractive, but as long as those 80-90% of the sales still go directly to the artists and I'm not suddenly required to open an account to be able to download the zipped WAV files I've purchased it's still going to remain the preferred option over other platforms with a much lesser focus on independent, non-mainstream music you cannot even download a DRM-free copy of for archiving purposes.

Still going to limit my purchases to releases that are digital-only and you can't get anywhere else in lossless format, going forward.

lol.
Well said

Hmmm, not sure whether this is good or bad. :/

No.

No!!!!!!!!!!!

:(


Faq. Y?

This is not good.

Thank you for some logic. People also forget that Bandcamp is not a huge site by any means. They're a small website in the grand scheme of things, likely not even a blip on the radar next to Amazon or iTunes. Hell, if you look at many of Epic's additions since 2013, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was just Sweeny trying to expand his share of the company VS Tencent. A good move, considering the slowly deteriorating relationship between the US and China.

Not only that, but it's probably going to be a lot easier having that direct line between game devs and indie musicians/smaller labels. I, for one, welcome that.

Yeah, it could be down to musical taste. Regardless, I don't see how Qobuz or 7Digital are better, honestly. They are both geolocked (bandcamp isn't), they both charge you separately for hires downloads (bandcamp doesn't), and as far I can tell they don't pay artists 80%+ of revenues.

There are also advantages unique to Bandcamp like merch (t-shirts, physical media, etc) purchases that include digital music downloads; Bandcamp Fridays (covid relief) where artists get 100% of the revenue; user profiles and reviews.

But thanks for the recommendations, I was only aware of 7Digital. I will look into them further and see which one better suits my needs and musical taste.

I checked 7Digital in the past, but then they closed their eu and worldwide stores without transfering user accounts.. that was a terrible anti-consumer move, so I don't trust them very much at this point.
Also I'm still looking for a service like Gog which doesn't add unnecessary limitations or remove content after purchase (which should be illegal FFS), but I doubt it exists.
Bandcamp was a nice option to have, but it was too focused on indies for me, I want 70-90's classics too. Also, it had no user ratings or reviews, a thing I don't like.

I'm really sad about this. Bandcamp was the best place for discovering new music and for supporting the artists (at least when you aren't into mainstream music). I can't think of any way that the takeover by Epic Games could be a good thing for them. Epic will probably try to maximize profits and that either means less money for the artists or less service for the fans (e.g. no free listening before buying or ads in between the songs).

Well I have broad musical tastes, though I am not really into Indies, and for me here in AUS, there is far more regular music available at Qobuz and ZDigital than at Bandcamp. They also don't have the clutter of Bandcamp.

I recently did a search for any albums by Gary Moore, the extremely famous guitarist's guitarist, who has oodles of albums, but not on Bandcamp, instead Bandcamp has oodles of Gary Moore covers and tributes by other artists. It's a hell of a lot of crap to wade through trying to find something legit.

Does Bandcamp even provide Hires downloads better than CD (16 bit) quality? I didn't note any in passing. My searches have been limited to classic rock and pop artists from every decade.

I'm only interested in CD quality (16 bit lossless Flac & Wav), Both of which I know you can buy from Qobuz and Bandcamp, along with a few other lossless and the lossy formats, though you get OGG files instead of WMA files at Bandcamp. The one failing ZDigital has is, you only get what you buy either the one Lossless or Lossy format, not both for the purchases price, whereas with the other two you get access to all variants. The hires or HD (24 bit) versions are just an expensive extra as far as I am concerned, and not really worth it. Very few people are going to be in a scenario where they can tell the difference. You certainly won't hear it with headphones or in the car In fact you will need very expensive equipment and an ideal listening environment.

By geolocked I am guessing you mean they don't sell to certain countries. Qobuz has not long been selling to AUS and NZ, so they are still expanding in that regard.

What is more painful, is when regions come into play. I know of album files that an American can buy from USA based stores or even Brits from the British Qobuz store, that are simply unavailable to me as an Aussie. That region nonsense really pisses me off.

One recent example is the Coat Of Arms album by Wishbone Ash. I have all their albums since 1970, a huge number, but currently I cannot buy that album (their latest release) here in AUS. That stinks. Americans and Brits etc can buy it, so why can't I.

I've bought a lot from Bandcamp, Epic better not fuck it up...