American online music distributor
Bandcamp
is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by
Oddpost
co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker,
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
with headquarters in
Oakland, California
.
[5]
Acquired by
Epic Games
in March 2022, the company was sold to
Songtradr
in 2023.
[6]
History
[
edit
]
Bandcamp was founded in 2007 by Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, headquartered in
Oakland, California
, US.
[5]
In 2010, the site enabled embedding in other websites and shared links on social media sites.
[7]
As of August 2020, half of Bandcamp's revenue was from sales for physical products.
[8]
In November 2020, Bandcamp launched Bandcamp Live, a ticketed
live-streaming
service for artists. The service is an integrated feature of the Bandcamp website. Fees on tickets were waived until March 31, 2021, and became 10% from then.
[9]
[10]
Bandcamp provides
vinyl
pressing services for artists. After a 50-artist pilot in 2020, the company opened limited access to 10,000 artists in early 2021 with plans for further expansion. Their fans preorder the pressing rather than having the artist fund it upfront. Bandcamp lets artists set their own price. The company's two million vinyl sales in 2020 doubled that of 2019.
[11]
Bandcamp was acquired by
Epic Games
on March 2, 2022.
[12]
Epic said the platform "will play an important role in Epic's vision to build out a creator marketplace ecosystem...". Ethan Diamond said "Bandcamp will keep operating as a stand-alone marketplace and music community...".
[13]
Bandcamp's employees voted to form a union via the
Office and Professional Employees International Union
in March 2023.
[14]
[15]
On September 28, 2023, Epic Games announced that it was laying off 870 people, roughly 16% of its workforce. As part of this, Bandcamp was sold to
Songtradr
, another music platform.
[16]
According to an Epic Games spokesperson, Songtradr incrementally offered employment to the Bandcamp staff.
[17]
However, several employees were locked out of their systems and faced uncertainty over their jobs. After the acquisition was completed on October 16, Songtradr stated that only 60 of Bandcamp's previously 118 workers had been offered a contract.
[18]
Songtradr fired most of the staff involved in forming the unionization, as well as the ones that were helping to negotiate fair terms.
[15]
In an internal email, Songtradr's CEO, Paul Wiltshire, said that Bandcamp's financial state had "not been healthy" due to increased operating costs over steady revenues, despite the site's continuous profitability.
[18]
In response to the layoffs, users and artists of the platform expressed anxiety about its future.
[19]
[20]
As of December 2023, Songtradr had not formally recognized the Bandcamp union.
[21]
Business model
[
edit
]
Artists and labels upload music to Bandcamp and control how they sell it, setting their own prices, offering users the option to pay more,
[22]
and selling merchandise.
Users can download their purchases or stream their music on the Bandcamp application or website only once or, by preserving the purchase voucher, unlimited times. They can also send purchased music as a gift,
[23]
view lyrics, and save individual songs or albums to a wish list. Uploading music to Bandcamp is free. The company takes a 15% commission on sales made from their website, which drops to 10% after an artist's sales surpass
US$
5,000, plus
payment processing
fees.
[24]
Downloads are offered in
lossy formats
MP3
(
LAME
, 320k or V0),
AAC
and
Ogg Vorbis
, and in lossless formats
FLAC
,
ALAC
,
WAV
and
AIFF
.
[25]
In addition to digital downloads artists may offer to sell their music on physical media such as
CD
or
vinyl
.
Bandcamp's website offers users access to an artist's page, with information on the artist, social media links, merchandising links and listing their available music. Artists can change the look of their page and customize its features.
[26]
Charity
[
edit
]
During the
COVID-19 pandemic
, in 2020 Bandcamp announced that they would be waiving their share of revenue and donating all sales to artists for 24 hours on March 20.
[27]
They repeated the initiative in the following months
[28]
and began calling these days "Bandcamp Fridays";
[29]
they are scheduled once every month and the website
Is It Bandcamp Friday?
[30]
was established to provide timing clarity to those outside the
Pacific Time Zone
. After raising more than $40 million for its musicians in 2020 through Bandcamp Fridays, the platform extended the program to four additional dates in 2021.
[31]
In response to the
protests
that took place following the
murder of George Floyd
and other African Americans who had died from police violence, Bandcamp announced that for 24 hours on June 19, 2020 they would donate 100% of profits to the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund
.
[32]
Notable artists and labels
[
edit
]
Bandcamp gained much attention in July 2010 when
Amanda Palmer
, Low Places and Bedhed gave up their
record labels
and started selling albums on Bandcamp, using
Twitter
for promotion.
[33]
[34]
Will Toledo
initially released his 2011 studio album
Twin Fantasy
on Bandcamp.
Several
indie game
developers
published their game soundtracks on Bandcamp,
[
citation needed
]
including the creators of
Aquaria
,
Bastion
,
Cuphead
,
Sanctum
,
Machinarium
,
Terraria
,
Plants vs. Zombies
,
Limbo
,
Super Meat Boy
,
To the Moon
,
YIIK: A Postmodern RPG
,
Fez
,
Minecraft
,
Undertale
,
Deltarune
,
and
Stardew Valley
.
[
citation needed
]
In December 2014, Bandcamp for Labels was launched. Popular independent labels such as
Sub Pop
,
Fat Wreck Chords
,
Relapse Records
and
Epitaph Records
launched their own Bandcamp pages.
[35]
In November 2019,
Peter Gabriel
added his complete solo catalog to Bandcamp.
[36]
On June 18, 2020,
Bjork
published her discography on the platform.
[37]
In December, UK label
Warp
joined Bandcamp; this made records by
Hudson Mohawke
,
Aphex Twin
,
Kelela
and other artists available on the platform.
[38]
On October 21, 2021,
Radiohead
published their discography on the platform.
[39]
Bandcamp Daily
[
edit
]
In the summer of 2016, their editorial content was expanded by launching
Bandcamp Daily
, an online music publication about artists on the platform.
[40]
[41]
The publication is based in New York.
[5]
Its managing editor is jj skolnik, a writer for
Pitchfork
,
BuzzFeed
and
The New York Times
, as well as former author of
punk zines
.
[42]
Among
Bandcamp Daily
's
columnists have been writers of
Wired
,
[43]
Vice
,
[44]
NPR Music
,
[45]
Pitchfork
[46]
and
Paste
.
[47]
On August 4, 2017, the staff of
Bandcamp Daily
donated all of the day's sales proceeds to the
Transgender Law Center
, a civil rights organization for
transgender
people.
[48]
In February 2018, the audience of
Bandcamp Daily
had increased by 84% since the previous year.
[41]
[49]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
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.
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Archived
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- ^
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.
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.
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.
Web developers and friends Ethan Diamond, Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker launched Bandcamp in 2008
- ^
a
b
c
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.
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- ^
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.
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- ^
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.
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- ^
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.
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.
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- ^
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(March 2, 2022).
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.
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.
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.
- ^
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.
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2023
.
- ^
a
b
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
Carter, Justin (October 16, 2023).
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.
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.
Archived
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. Retrieved
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2023
.
- ^
a
b
Council, Stephen (October 16, 2023).
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.
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.
Archived
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. Retrieved
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2023
.
- ^
Harrington, Caitlin.
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.
Wired
.
ISSN
1059-1028
.
Archived
from the original on October 8, 2023
. Retrieved
October 8,
2023
.
- ^
Parrish, Ash (October 16, 2023).
"About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off"
.
The Verge
.
Archived
from the original on October 17, 2023
. Retrieved
October 17,
2023
.
- ^
Cartledge, Luke (December 20, 2023).
"Bandcamp's New Owner Has Gone After the Company's Unionized Workforce"
.
Jacobin
. Retrieved
March 27,
2024
.
- ^
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.
Bandcamp
.
Archived
from the original on September 18, 2018
. Retrieved
September 17,
2018
.
- ^
"Thank You, It's a Gift"
.
The Bandcamp Blog
. November 26, 2013.
Archived
from the original on July 4, 2014
. Retrieved
June 19,
2014
.
- ^
James Shotwell (June 20, 2010).
"Bandcamp.com changes business model"
. Alt Press.
Archived
from the original on August 8, 2011
. Retrieved
October 27,
2010
.
- ^
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, archived from
the original
on February 20, 2019
, retrieved
February 19,
2019
- ^
Deitz, Ben (January 24, 2011).
"Bandcamp Decoded: An Indie Musician's Best (and Most Profitable) Friend"
. Switched.com. Archived from
the original
on April 29, 2014
. Retrieved
June 19,
2014
.
- ^
Aswad, Jem (March 20, 2020).
"Online Music Retailer Bandcamp Is Waiving Its Share of Sales Today ? 100% Goes to Musicians"
.
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.
Archived
from the original on April 8, 2020
. Retrieved
July 10,
2020
.
- ^
Galil, Leor (July 1, 2020).
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.
Chicago Reader
.
Archived
from the original on July 2, 2020
. Retrieved
July 2,
2020
.
- ^
"Support Artists Impacted By the Covid-19 Pandemic"
.
Bandcamp Daily
. July 3, 2020.
Archived
from the original on September 18, 2020
. Retrieved
September 14,
2020
.
- ^
"Is it Bandcamp Friday?"
.
isitbandcampfriday.com
.
Archived
from the original on September 23, 2020
. Retrieved
September 14,
2020
.
- ^
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"
'Bandcamp Fridays' Raised $40 Million for Artists, Will Continue in 2021"
.
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.
Archived
from the original on December 15, 2020
. Retrieved
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2020
.
- ^
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.
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. June 2020.
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from the original on June 3, 2020
. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
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.
- ^
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.
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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. Riffyou.com. December 17, 2014.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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,
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.
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.
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,
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External links
[
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]
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Third-party
publishing
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MegaGames
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Publishing
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