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Just like Spotify is trying to be seen as synonymous with the very concept of listening to music, Bandcamp has aimed to be seen as synonymous with the act of supporting artists. It’s hard to overstate just how much good will Bandcamp has been able to accrue. Social media is full of endless sentiments bolstering the fact that Bandcamp has achieved a reputation of being a mostly altruistic, artist first company up to this point. Philadelphia indie punk band Gladie credited the platform with being instrumental in their ability to self release their album, Don’t Know What You’re in Until You’re Out, but remain skeptical of what Songtradr will do “to a once beloved community in order to squeeze out every last dollar for its investors.” New Zealand musician, Lukas Mayo, who makes music under the name Pickle Darling, expressed concern that much of their favorite music “is going to disappear forever” and credits former members of the editorial staff at Bandcamp for all of the traction their music ever received – “no algorithms, just people who loved music and wanted to highlight music they loved, without any concern about how ‘big’ or important the artist was,” they said. Upon news of the sale and of layoffs, musicians took to Twitter to give their support to the Bandcamp staff and share their worry about the future due to what Bandcamp has meant to them. Bandcamp Daily has been a beacon of interesting and diverse coverage in a music journalism landscape that is increasingly only interested in finding a way to shoehorn Taylor Swift in wherever they can.įrom an artist perspective, the combination of the coverage Bandcamp Daily provides and the nature of the built-in discovery tools has made the site integral to being seen in an increasingly crowded digital world. It’s a natural extension of the reputation of being able to stumble upon great, independent music via the database of extensively tagged music. It’s a music journalism outlet – importantly, that pays – uniquely interested in underground, independent art. It is a website that has been able to garner goodwill on all three prongs of its offerings. While Bandcamp has always been a tech company, it has also long been seen as a line of defense against the big, bad music streaming services, and has held a culture of its own as a discovery tool for underground, independent music.
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This has been the first blow to Bandcamp’s pretty untouchable reputation. The current state of the music industry has devalued music to the point massive artists will make more money selling off their rights than they can off sales. It’s a trend underscored not by increased value of art, but a change in who is able to actually profit off art. the transfer of entire catalogs of music to venture capitalist firms looking to exploit copyrights they had no hand in creating. Paul Wiltshire would have you believe his company is aligned with artists, even if he comes at music with beliefs like “music as a whole is inherently more valuable as a consequence” of catalog sales – i.e. But don’t worry about that! Songtradr loves your community! Their CEO is a “passionate musician” himself. SFGate reports that the layoffs disproportionately impact those eligible for union membership, including every member of their 8 person bargaining team. Needless to say, having observed one single corporate acquisition before, Songtradr didn't recognize Bandcamp’s union, and employees remained in limbo for weeks before it was finally announced who would be let go – 60 of the 118 employees, slashing 50% or more across all departments, including half of the Bandcamp Daily editorial staff and 70% of the vinyl team. As with all layoffs, this decision was presented as a necessary evil – there’s simply no way they could run this company with all those employees! – but they swore to you, their darling consumer, that you would feel no effects. As of their initial statement regarding the acquisition, Songtradr is planning to continue Bandcamp Friday, keep Bandcamp Daily, and maintain all current features, but they were clear that not all employees would be retained. Then at the end of September 2023 it was announced that Epic would be selling Bandcamp to content licensing and service company Songtradr. Their popular Bandcamp Fridays – an initiative started in 2020 in which the site forgoes their 15% fee of sales on the first Friday of each month – also continued. So far so good. All the while Bandcamp Daily’s distinctive editorial coverage continued. Just over a year later in May of 2023 it was announced that Bandcamp’s employees voted 31-7 to unionize as Bandcamp United and were to be recognized by Epic. While the change in ownership raised eyebrows and triggered endless jokes, the site seemed to stay running much the same at first. In March of 2022, Bandcamp was acquired by Epic Games, the folks behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine.