Songtradr Takes Control of Bandcamp
An Editorial by Dawoud Kringle
In 2007, a new musician’s service called Bandcamp began. This was a revolutionary service that allowed musicians to release digital music. Since its founding, Bandcamp provided a place where musicians can cultivate loyal fan communities and receive 82% of every transaction (compare this to Spotify and other streaming services, which pay a fraction of a cent per stream).
Bandcamp was sold to Epic Games in March 2022. Many artists, music lovers, and industry groups were concerned that a uniquely artist-centric platform might change for the worse. Epic managed to keep Bandcamp operational.
On September 28th, 2023, employees of Epic Games attended a mandatory meeting the next morning. Just before the meeting, employees of Bandcamp received another email informing them that Epic was laying off 16% of the company’s workforce (some sources, such as theverge.com, claim the number of layoffs to be almost 50%), and selling Bandcamp to audio licensing company Songtradr. Some Bandcamp employees will not be receiving job offers from Songtradr. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney announced that the laid-off employees would get six months of pay and health care along with other benefits.
After the acquisition was publicly announced, problems arose that affected Bandcamp’s operations. Multiple Bandcamp employees began losing access to many of the systems needed to do their jobs and keep Bandcamp operational. The platform is presently operating with severely limited oversight. Bandcamp customer support specialist Ed Blair and software engineer Blade Barringer were quoted in Wired Magazine as saying that staff have received little guidance from Epic or Songtradr corporate management about how they’re supposed to do their jobs without access to critical systems. Barringer also said that a handful of engineers are still performing the critical tasks needed to keep the site running, but can’t commit new code. A minor bug was found, but software engineers couldn’t access the program needed to fix it.
Songtradr executives held a Zoom meeting last week. They claimed they wanted Bandcamp to stay artist-friendly. Some felt their statements didn’t provide clarity. According to Blair, the staff have been told that Bandcamp is in a state of stasis during the transition. He described the situation as being “really destabilizing” for the workers.
The takeover of Bandcamp by Songtradr could also be destabilizing for musicians and their fans.
Recently, the Future of Music Coalition, a musician advocacy nonprofit, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the company’s leaders should “do what Bandcamp’s fine employees have done for years—seeking constant artist/label feedback at every iteration. Don’t screw it up!”
According to Sandy Pope, bargaining director for the Office of Professional Employees International Union (which since March has represented 67 out of some 120 Bandcamp workers since March 2023), Songtradr purchased Bandcamp’s business and operations but not its staff/employees.
Bandcamp’s union, OPEIU Local 1010, is demanding that Songtradr offer jobs to all current employees, recognize the union, and continue the negotiations begun with Epic. Below, the reader will find a link to their petition for fans and artists urging Songtradr to back those demands.
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/songtradr-recognize-bandcamp-united/
It is too early to tell if the sale will affect Bandcamp’s long-term ability to provide their valuable services to independent artists. However, Sogtradr’s initial operations of their acquisition is showing an extraordinarily unimpressive beginning. If Bandcamp cannot sustain its high level of quality service, or if it changes its operations in a way that is no longer lucrative for the independent musicians that depend on it, the results will be disastrous.
