I think we'll be seeing RIP: Bandcamp in the not distant future

There's been an interesting revelation and nasty development in the sale of Bandcamp by Epic Games to Songtradr. Approximately half of the staff have been dumped. And it turns out that the sale was an ASSET SALE with "no legal requirement to retain employees or recognize the union". Wow, what a weasel way to operate! I mean, I've heard of a company shedding assets in bankruptcy reorgs, but that's not what's going on here!

Late stage capitalism or what?

From the LA Times article: "Songtradr has not officially recognized the Bandcamp United union, which had been demanding Songtradr extend an offer to all employees and provide severance packages to those who declined to stay on board. Because the transaction was an asset sale, Songtradr had no legal requirement to retain employees or recognize the union."

So the name moves, the assets move, and almost all of the people are gone. One thing that I found confusing was one article said that Bandcamp had 830 employees, then this LA Times article says "A representative for Songtradr told The Times that 60 of Bandcamp’s 118 employees were offered the opportunity to retain their position, and that 58 workers had accepted."

Seems to me that this is fertile ground for another big company to swoop in, recruit all of these suddenly displaced people, and restart Bandcamp under a new name with fresh funding. I, not being a billionaire and successful businessman, will not be doing this.

The Slashdot article summary references a San Francisco Chronicle article that first complained that I was using an ad blocker. When I unblocked the article, it then wanted me to subscribe. Fortunately someone on Slashdot pointed to the LA Times article which just wanted ads unblocked. I then went back and re-blocked the Chronicle.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-10-16/bandcamp-layoffs-songtradr-epic-games

https://slashdot.org/story/23/10/17/0226239/bandcamp-slashes-nearly-half-its-staff-after-epic-sale

RIP: Canadian Broadcast Corporation's time signal announcement, just shy of its 84th anniversary

The CBC began broadcasting a time signal on its shortwave station CHU on November 5th, 1939, the same year that it joined World War 1 and six years before the USA began broadcasting its time signal on their shortwave station WWV. The CBC Radio One time broadcast was discontinued unexpectedly earlier this month on October 9th. The reasons stated was that the Radio One broadcast is received through a number of means, including satellite reception, that can induce lag of several seconds, and in critical applications this cannot be relied upon.

You can still listen to CHU if you have a shortwave receiver and can pick up its signal, it broadcasts on 3.33, 7.85 and 14.67 MHz, and are heard through central/eastern Canada and the eastern United States. More info on the station at https://www.radioworld.com/global/chu-canadas-time-station. One thing that I find interesting is they regularly send out QSL cards! (something that only ham radio geeks would be interested in)

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/canadas-84-year-radio-time-check-has-stopped-because-of-accuracy-concerns/


For the science fiction geeks amongst us, the sound of CHU's time signal's Morse code broadcast was used for the sound of the Rebel's radar signal in The Empire Strike's Back! It's embedded in the Battle of Hoth scene.

https://swling.com/blog/tag/the-empire-strikes-back/