Online music is inherently precarious — if a physical recording of something is never made, it’s dangerously easy to erase any sign that it ever existed.
With mass layoffs in the wake of Bandcamp’s sale from Epic Games to Songtradr, as well as the recent announcement that Soundcloud is seeking a buyer in a potentially billion-dollar deal, there are understandable concerns about the future of the music that’s been uploaded on those platforms.
The internet often lulls us into a false sense of security where we presume that hosted content will always be accessible and available, without any need to acquire a copy for yourself.
The troubled fate of DatPiff has been a case study in the necessity of backing up your music: after the company’s servers went offline last year, DatPiff announced a partnership with the Internet Archive to bring its extensive collection of rap mixtapes to the free digital library.
Read more on thefader.com