![]() ![]() ![]() That’s not to say it has been free of criticism. “ Bandcamp Fridays,” the once-a-month event where Bandcamp would direct all payments to musicians without taking its own cut, became a much-hyped occasion on social media the company also staged special days to forgo its revenue portions in favor of supporting transgender rights and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.īy 2021, 13 years after its launch, Bandcamp was more recognized and beloved than ever. The pandemic inadvertently boosted Bandcamp’s clout, as artists struggling due to canceled tours touted Bandcamp as the more artist-friendly alternative to other streaming services’ measly payouts. It even keeps a public tally of how much money it’s given to artists in total, as well as which albums and songs have been purchased however many times. It now hosts the catalogs of legendary independent labels like Sub Pop, runs the online magazine Bandcamp Daily, offers retail services for artist merch, and even manages its own record store and vinyl-pressing plant. Sites like 8tracks and eMusic, which respectively allowed users to share curated playlists freely and buy digital downloads, have faded from view-yet Bandcamp has grown and thrived since its 2008 launch. Subscription-based streaming remains dominant, however. Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. When Spotify did away with its messaging services in 2017 and obscured liner notes and credits from immediate view, Bandcamp gave users options to recommend and share their favorite acts, while leaving enough room on each song and album page for artists to write out their lyrics, notes, and credits as they wished. As CD sales plunged from their ’90s peak in the mid- to late 2000s, the platform found success allowing artists to sell cassette tapes (yes), discs, and records, presaging the still-booming vinyl resurgence. Other streamers use expensive exclusives from big stars as subscription incentives, but Bandcamp has kept its focus narrow: Over the years, it’s brought independent artists, label-free stars, and game score composers to its interface and cultivated small but loyal fan bases. But when forced to choose, they did what was best for the parent company, not the acquired business.” He further noted, “The chance of failure increases dramatically when the acquired company is in a different industry,” highlighting the eventual post-M&A failures of companies like RCA and Kodak.Īs free and low-priced subscription-based streaming ate up the once-hot MP3 market, Bandcamp kept selling high-quality digital files, taking only a 10–15 percent cut of revenue per sale while Apple made at least 30 percent of the money for each iTunes purchase. Not immediately, but it happened sooner or later. ![]() Music historian Ted Gioia wrote in his Substack about how his firsthand experiences with big business mergers and acquisitions left him feeling pessimistic: “In more than a few instances, the acquiring company destroyed the business it bought. The Future of Music Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for musicians, posted a cautiously skeptical Twitter thread about the deal: It explained that Epic has been a frustrating partner when it comes to song licensing, compounded by the 40 percent stake held by Chinese corporation Tencent, which also has a stake in Spotify. Epic spokesperson Elka Looks confirmed to Slate over email that “this was an acquisition of Bandcamp’s business,” though the company is “not disclosing terms of the deal/how it came about.” The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle suspected on Twitter that Epic wants access to Bandcamp’s data. Some observers on social media wondered whether this was a partnership between the two companies or a wholesale acquisition of Bandcamp. Immediate reactions to Bandcamp sidling up to Epic Games were mixed and often confused. ![]()
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