It seems that Jamendo, which used to be a place that I would grab decent Creative Commons Licensed Metal music for a podcast I ran called Open Metalcast has decided to partner with Winamp for Creators. I know this because at one time I uploaded a few tracks on Jamendo under my "echochasm" moniker so folks could use them for their own projects. While I was nominally OK with Jamendo having access to these tracks I am NOT OK with Winamp for Creators at all. I'm incensed with Jamendo for doing this because of the way they handled it.
Jamendo has a large catalog of Creative Commons music that they've been trying to monetize for years. They had a way for folks to license the music which would override the Creative Commons license (since most of the stuff on there has a strict Non-Commercial clause). I never signed up for this because frankly I didn't put the music up there to monetize it at all. I'm not sure how many artists signed up for licensing their music this way but it seemed like they had a good number of folks do this. Fine. What I didn't agree to was Jamendo making a back-room deal with other companies to try to monetize the music they had on their site.
Enter Winamp, a brand that is best known for a music player that was popular in the 2000s and was owned by AOL for a while before everyone moved to iTunes and other platforms. During its years wandering in the desert it got acquired by several companies where it snorted NFTs off toilet seats and got involved in other shady business dealings.
In short, this is not the same company that whipped the llama's ass back when llama's asses needed whipping.
And because Jamendo and Winamp decided to make a deal I now have a Winamp for Creators account on the Winamp platform.
Jamendo never asked me if I wanted this, nor did they (I assume) ask the permission of the thousands of other artists on the platform. They just went ahead and did a data dump and gave my information to Winamp.
Naturally one can't just delete their creator account. Winamp's system is so convoluted that there's always at least one dependency laying around. I can't remove the tracks that are on there, nor can I remove the album that's up there. Albums must have at least two tracks, so I can't delete all of the tracks from the album. As long as I can't delete the tracks or album I can't delete the account.
This is horseshit, and another nail in Jamendo's coffin. I know they have every legal right to do this but the moral right to do this is exceedingly thin. I never consented to this transfer of my information and I find the language trumpeting this as a benefit that any right-thinking human would want off-putting.
Jamendo and Winamp have joined forces, and the most exciting aspect is that you'll get free access to a Winamp for Creators account. It's free for life.
and
Just a gentle reminder to ensure you don't miss out!! Jamendo and Winamp have united to create an all-in-one platform for Music Creators, opening up new revenue opportunities alongside your earnings from DSPs.
and
Don't miss out on this exciting opportunity! Jamendo and Winamp have teamed up to create an all-in-one platform for Music Creators, offering you new ways to boost your income alongside what you earn from DSPs.
Winamp acts as your go-to place for handling Fanzone subscriptions, and there are even more services on the horizon, like distribution, copyright management, licensing, and NFT creation/selling.
Excuse me, I think I need a sick bag.
I'm not sure if I deleted everything off of Jamendo yet but if you see any of my music floating around on Jamendo or Winamp know that I no longer support or endorse Jamendo and I never endorsed Winamp for Creators. I can't speak for everyone who had their music up on Jamendo if they endorse this but I can tell you as someone who had music on Jamendo that it wasn't universally endorsed by all of the creators on the platform.
This is a new low for Jamendo. They used to be a decent platform for finding new music but after this they're dead to me. I hope other platforms take their place, especially with the acquisition of Bandcamp by Songtradr. As for Winamp I hope their new platform fails so fast that the disks can't even finish writing from cache.
Pathetic.