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Comment by kundi | Hacker News Reader

We've been developing a curated alternative to Bandcamp for electronic music, which also replaces Soundclound and Mixcloud. It's called Formaviva (https://formaviva.com)

We are a bootstrapped team of musicians, loyal to independent music so we want out platform to stay that way.

We're also hiring: https://formaviva.com/jobs

PS: I'm one of the team members

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I had a quick look at your site.

From the "Terms of Service":

> Unless otherwise stated, Samorastnik d.o.o. and/or its licensors own the intellectual property rights for all material on Formaviva.

Where's the "otherwise" for people that post music on your platform?

I was actually searching for your legal status (which kind of legal persona you are and in which jurisdiction). I couldn't find a thing on your website.

All the music on the platform remains intellectual property of the artists or labels that upload it (as stated in your quote).

Any potential ambiguity in the TOS will related to your concern will be thoroughly assessed.

The company information has been added to the TOS page as well.

Yikes.

To be honest, according to our potential misbelief about the world and how it works treating the project as a "sacred child", which might be an attitude very unknown to some of you here, it hasn't striked us that someone would go to look and read the Terms of Service, before really looking at the site, its mission and the music.

Perhaps you haven't had a chance to arrive there yet, but we will take your comment as a recommendation for the improvement, which will be implemented in the coming days so that also "law-oriented music lovers" will be pleased with the law-confirming evolution.

It did not occur to you that musicians would look at the terms of their contract?

You plan to, but have not yet, implement unspecified changes, not for musicians but 'law-oriented music lovers'?

I am just about speechless. May your 'sacred child' not come to term.

edit: I can't find any sign that anybody else anywhere is even aware of this… if what you mean is that the project is JUST you, and there won't be anybody else signed to your project, then apologies, carry on :) however, that's super not anything like Bandcamp.

I apologize if this got transmitted in the inappropriate form.

Could you share your perspective on what would be the most productive terms for the independent musicians and what all would you expect them to entail?

If you have to ask, you should not be doing this.

Honestly, sometimes I wonder that too... since most independent musicians are broke and underappreciated, it might be better to start a crypto project..

But there is still little hope (I hope)

https://formaviva.com/khoros-records/f-h-l-rmxs

If you were really on the independent musicians side, the default should always be that they retain all rights to their own work. That is what was attractive about Bandcamp for musicians, they were merely a payment processor.

This is already the case (see the response above).

Is there anything else in particular that you would find important to address?

It's not stated anywhere, either in the response above or on the website (that I can find).

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