At the end of September 2023, the creator of one of the most popular games, Fortnite, and the owner of the popular music platform Bandcamp announced significant changes. On 27/09, Epic Games announced that they would lay off 830 employees, which accounts for about 16% of their total workforce. Additionally, they revealed their decision to sell the Bandcamp platform to Songtradr.
Regrettably, it appears that some Bandcamp employees will indeed face layoffs. Upon Songtradr’s acquisition of Bandcamp, several employees found themselves without access to the platform’s systems. It has been revealed that Songtradr does not intend to offer new contracts to many Bandcamp employees, leaving nearly half of the Bandcamp workforce facing potential job loss.
Bandcamp is currently undergoing a transition period, during which it will essentially be in a state of hibernation. This transitional phase will undoubtedly have the most significant impact on the platform’s employees, who were taken by surprise by these recent developments. While Songtradr’s announcement states that the platform will maintain its focus and remain friendly to musicians, it does not provide extensive details about the future direction of Bandcamp.
Musicians, along with employees, constitute a significant group affected by the recent platform changes. The implications for Bandcamp’s future operations remain uncertain for both musicians and their fans.
Bandcamp, founded in 2008 by Ethan Diamond, Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt, and Neil Tucker, serves as an online platform that enables musicians and artists to directly sell and distribute their music to fans.
Unlike traditional publishers and some newer digital music platforms, Bandcamp offers a high degree of flexibility. Musicians can independently upload their music, determine the pricing, and directly sell their music to listeners. Furthermore, the platform is format-flexible, supporting various file types such as MP3, FLAC, AAC, and more.
Bandcamp offers fans the ability to discover new music, stream, and purchase albums or songs. Its popularity among independent musicians and smaller labels is due to its artist-friendly approach, which enables artists to retain greater control over their music and revenue. The platform strongly emphasizes artist support, providing them with tools to directly engage with their fans and cultivate a dedicated fan base.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Bandcamp has dedicated one Friday a month to supporting musicians. On these days, the platform significantly reduces its commission, ensuring that nearly 100 percent of the purchases go directly to the musicians.
Bandcamp was previously known for its strong communication with musicians and users, but recent layoffs have had a significant impact on its customer care center. Currently, only three employees remain in this department. This reduction in support staff raises concerns, especially for a platform that deals with millions of releases and facilitates thousands of transactions, resulting in almost a million dollars in sales daily.
The second most affected sector is the one responsible for publishing the digital magazine. It currently has only three editors and one designer. While Bandcamp Daily is expected to continue, the reduced staffing levels are likely to impact the quality of the publication.
In the absence of a more detailed statement from Songtradr, we don’t know exactly what the company’s plans are for Bandcamp. Prospects don’t look good. To begin with, a business-to-consumer retailer like Bandcamp doesn’t seem like a natural fit for a B2B company like Songtradr. When it made the acquisition, Songtradr hinted vaguely at the possibility of synergy across the two platforms, noting that Bandcamp artists would be able to license their music to a wide variety of clients “and increase their earning capacity from Songtradr’s global licensing network.” But even here, the two companies’ philosophies appear fundamentally at odds. To Songtradr, which licenses mood music to advertisers and content creators, music is an add-on, an extra, a Pavlovian trigger to help brands sell more chalupas. To Bandcamp, music is unique, unrepeatable, the be-all and end-all—it’s everything.
writes Pitchfork.
For users of the platform who own music on Bandcamp and fear they may be left without it, Batchcamp is a Chrome extension that allows them to download most of their music collection at once.
