Bandcamp is joining Epic Games

[Barrie]

I’m excited to announce that Bandcamp is joining Epic Games, who you may know as the makers of Fortnite and Unreal Engine, and champions for a fair and open Internet.

Bandcamp will keep operating as a standalone marketplace and music community, and I will continue to lead our team. The products and services you depend on aren’t going anywhere, we’ll continue to build Bandcamp around our artists-first revenue model (where artists net an average of 82% of every sale), you’ll still have the same control over how you offer your music, Bandcamp Fridays will continue as planned, and the Daily will keep highlighting the diverse, amazing music on the site. However, behind the scenes we’re working with Epic to expand internationally and push development forward across Bandcamp, from basics like our album pages, mobile apps, merch tools, payment system, and search and discovery features, to newer initiatives like our vinyl pressing and live streaming services.

Since our founding in 2008, we’ve been motivated by the pursuit of our mission, which is to help spread the healing power of music by building a community where artists thrive through the direct support of their fans. That simple idea has worked well, with payments to artists and labels closing in on $1 billion USD. And while over the years we’ve heard from other companies who wanted us to join them, we’ve always felt that doing so would only be exciting if they strongly believed in our mission, were aligned with our values, and not only wanted to see Bandcamp continue, but also wanted to provide the resources to bring a lot more benefit to the artists, labels, and fans who use the site. Epic ticks all those boxes. We share a vision of building the most open, artist-friendly ecosystem in the world, and together we’ll be able to create even more opportunities for artists to be compensated fairly for their work.

Whether you joined Bandcamp recently or have been with us since the beginning 14 years ago, thank you for being a part of this incredible community, and we look forward to serving you for many years to come!

Ethan Diamond
Bandcamp co-founder and CEO

[PavlovsCat]

I'd be interested in folks here giving their thoughts on this and other platforms. 

Edited March 7, 2022 by PavlovsCat

[Vernon Barnes]

3 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

I'd be interested in folks here giving their thoughts on this and other platforms.  I've only started to share my music with friends and in the song forum here. Many years ago, up until the late 90s, I played drums semi professionally for a couple of decades and formed a band of my own for my original music that never found a lead singer and disbanded. But I have a lousy voice and only recently have had the courage to share music with just me playing and singing and have been using SoundCloud. 

Bandcamp is great with lots of options.  I have sold a few copies and made a very modest amount of money but you can of course charge nothing or do it pay as what you want.  You get a bunch of codes so you can give away downloads, good for reviewers or family. If you have sold some copies they give you more free download codes. You can add extras to the download, like PDF liner notes etc. and making a decent looking page for an album is quite easy, including adding lyrics.

You also retain control of what can be streamed and how many times it can be streamed without a purchase.

Normally they take a modest percentage of the sale but they have monthly "Bandcamp Fridays" where they waive their fees.

The hardest part is promotion and directing people to your music.

[Vernon Barnes]

This Twitter thread is relevant.

 

[JoeGBradford]

I buy most of my music from Bandcamp - usually on Bandcamp Fridays. They seem to have fairly ethical practices compared to the rest of the business. I know many musicians  who sell their music and merch on there and seem very happy. I hope this continues

[jackson white]

I understand Epic currently has Spotify in their "game store", which might suggest soundtracks are part of the gaming experience?  And possibly a potential channel for any metal/synth musos out there (based on what little I know about games). 

[Carl Ewing]

Quote

who you may know as the makers of Fortnite and Unreal Engine, and champions for a fair and open Internet.

Lol. Funny to hear that without sarcasm. This is EPIC GAMES they are talking about. Haha.

Too bad about Bandcamp. Instead of focusing on creative marketing and promoting the artists on their platform, and improving the UI / UX of their platform (still insisting on only Paypal revenue payments....in 2022!), they will just partner with more corporations to get some of that sweet easy cash. Bandcamp continues on its path to irrelevancy along with Soundcloud.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Carl Ewing

[X-53mph]

2 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

Lol. Funny to hear that without sarcasm. This is EPIC GAMES they are talking about. Haha.

Too bad about Bandcamp. Instead of focusing on creative marketing and promoting the artists on their platform, and improving the UI / UX of their platform (still insisting on only Paypal revenue payments....in 2022!), they will just partner with more corporations to get some of that sweet easy cash. Bandcamp continues on its path to irrelevancy along with Soundcloud.

SoundCloud?  What's that? Is it like MySpace?

[JT music]

Bandcamp has absolutely no weight in the industry, its unconventional system to a distributor would not come or I think will come to fruition if it does not change its style and way improve its distribution, lacks productive horizons for the artist, they have a terrible direct deal with artists, I currently with my more than three hundred tracks I use it as a warehouse to store online all my repertoire because economically it does not provide me with income, where the same if it does with another distributor like RouteNote.

[antler]

For those of us not in the know, could the people who think Bandcamp isn't that good provide some better alternatives please?

[Starship Krupa]

Caveat: my experience is based on being a fan (and artist) of the electronica genre, although I've bought several albums and songs from other genres on Bandcamp. I've no idea what the impact of ownership by Epic might be. My purchase loop is "hear it on SomaFM, who recommend and often link straight to Bandcamp in their players), then go check the rest of the album on Bandcamp, buy either the track or the whole record." I'm active in seeking out new music, even at 61, and their recommendations and articles are a great way to do that. There's so much information available that it's like trying to drink from a firehose.

Going back 45 years, I've found my favorite music outside "mainstream" outlets, college radio, true indie labels buying cassettes and CD's at shows, etc. I read Albini's "Some of Your Friends Are Already This [Plucked]" (aka "The Problem With Music") when it was first published in Maximum Rock 'n' Roll and it blew my mind and destroyed the fantasy of "getting signed."

As such, I frickin' love the platform. I'd much rather buy there than anywhere else. One HUGE advantage that they've long held over the biggies is that you can upload (and purchase) lossless, which is the only thing I buy. A buyer can leave a personal note to the artist, which I usually do, and I've had conversations with a couple of my favorite artists as a result. I contacted Chris Zippel through the platform and he sent me a song that wasn't available for purchase anywhere. I'm a big "soundstage" listener and being able to get lossless files from sound sculptors like David Tipper, Telefon Tel Aviv and SCANN-TEC is, to me, essential to listening to those artists. Bandcamp's streaming CODEC's are also some of the best I've heard, and that, too is important to me.

Knowing that the platform only takes a 10% vig is also very important to me. See Albini article.

For my own (so far) meagre output, I don't even bother with any other distribution platform. No offense intended, but I'm not interested in whatever listeners who might hear me in some algorithm-generated Spotify playlist. I make music for people like me who put some effort into discovering stuff they'll like and get excited about finding a new (to them) artist. This may seem like a contradiction, as the ambient music I'm making these days would seem tailor-made for any number of "chill" channels.

Basically, you could say that my musical goal is to live the dream that started 40 years ago: make music that reaches people like me and engage with them as directly as possible, without having to rely on middle-entities who take too much compensation for work that I do. I love that the internet has made it possible. Albini himself a few years back had a much more optimistic take on the current state. I'm not an Albini fanboy; I think he's kind of abrasive, actually, but on these topics I tend to agree with him. As such, Bandcamp is the best platform for me. Something else may come along, maybe the relationship with Epic will ruin it. But that's the fun thing about these times: if Bandcamp is ruined, something else will pop up to replace it.

Your mileage will almost certainly vary, but that's my take.

[User 905133]

18 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

. . . my experience is based on being a fan . . . of the electronica genre . . . . My purchase loop is "hear it on SomaFM, who recommend and often link straight to Bandcamp in their players), then go check the rest of the album on Bandcamp, buy either the track or the whole record."

Now that you mention it, I have done something similar.  Over the past decade or so, I have listened to and/or purchased from electronic and ambient artists who offer their albums and entire collections through bandcamp.  I generally heard the music on any of a number internet stations I have grown to trust. Also, in some cases I knew the artists from live streamed performances, from personal contact at events I participated in, etc.  I am on the mailing lists for a couple so I find out about new releases.

8 hours ago, JT music said:

Bandcamp has absolutely no weight in the industry . . . .

I can't remember how many decades ago I gave a rat's tail about music pimped out by "the industry."

Edited March 3, 2022 by User 905133
to add a missing ", etc"

[JoeGBradford]

The great majority of musicians I listen to (mostly folk and roots music) either sell their music direct through their own website or use Bandcamp. Those that use Bandcamp generally seem happy with it and many recommend it as the place they'd prefer people to buy their music from. 

I'm happy as a punter knowing that all my money goes to the artists as I buy on Bandcamp Fridays.  I hope Epic Games don't ruin the current model. 

[Doug Rintoul]

On 3/3/2022 at 1:43 AM, Carl Ewing said:

Too bad about Bandcamp. Instead of focusing on creative marketing and promoting the artists on their platform, and improving the UI / UX of their platform (still insisting on only Paypal revenue payments....in 2022!), they will just partner with more corporations to get some of that sweet easy cash. Bandcamp continues on its path to irrelevancy along with Soundcloud.

I couldn't disagree with you more. From a consumer point of view I don't want want any creative marketing coming between me, the artist and their music. As a distributor of music, they are just fine. As others have stated, I prefer other methods to discover new music and new artists. I really don't want some useless promotion gobbling up money that should go directly to the artist. I am not sure why you feel Bandcamp is becoming irrelevant.

[Colin Nicholls]

I sell my music on BandCamp.

I don't know enough to know if the Epic deal is good or bad news.

Promotion has always been a problem, regardless of platform.

[JT music]

On 3/3/2022 at 6:43 AM, Carl Ewing said:

 

 

Edited March 7, 2022 by JT music

[JT music]

On 3/3/2022 at 6:43 AM, Carl Ewing said:

Lol. Funny to hear that without sarcasm. This is EPIC GAMES they are talking about. Haha.

Too bad about Bandcamp. Instead of focusing on creative marketing and promoting the artists on their platform, and improving the UI / UX of their platform (still insisting on only Paypal revenue payments....in 2022!), they will just partner with more corporations to get some of that sweet easy cash. Bandcamp continues on its path to irrelevancy along with Soundcloud.

Totally agree

[X-53mph]

52 minutes ago, pwalpwal said:

This is soooo true.

I think when I started putting stuff out on streaming platforms like Spotify and iTunes the payments were higher. I might have seen a few bucks here and there. Nowdays it's just a loss making venture for me. And it's so un-transparent. The artist really has no idea if the stats are true or false. To give you an idea. I've got music being played by DJs now. I'm 'apparently' in the top 5 on one playlist. If I look at my Spotify stats I haven't had a single listen for a month.   Despite all the gesturing and bragging on line, I would wager that most artists are not even getting gas money from streaming platforms, and I don't know how honest those services are being. If anything, I think it's reverting back to how the old radio playlists used to work. Back when I had my music on 'real' radio, I signed up with the PRS in the UK to collect. I remember having to contact radio stations myself and get copies of their playlists to send to the PRS to prove that my music had been A-listed to national radio to get paid what I was owed. There was a time when radio stations published their playlists online. When they stopped doing that the onus fell on the artists to track them down, and if you didn't have a manager or a team doing it for you.... Good bye money. I feel the streaming platforms lack of transparency is leading to the top earners earning ever more and the bottom feeders losing out.

Bandcamp on the other hand has always been good to the artists in that respect.  Better than most labels (and I'm speaking as an artist who was once signed to a label), when someone buys an album, the artist gets the lion share. That would have been unheard of with the old label system where the artist usually started off in debt to the label.  

I hope Bandcamp stay true to their initial mission statement and it doesn't transform into another content library for streaming platforms or video games in the style of Epidemic Sounds.  That would be the death of Bandcamp as it is now.

And on a final note, you know those people who preach that the internet is a utopia in which the artist can finally be free and make money from their work? I'd like to stamp on their family jewels.  The internet hasn't freed anyone. It's just redefined the prison boundaries.

[Starship Krupa]

On 3/3/2022 at 12:59 PM, antler said:

For those of us not in the know, could the people who think Bandcamp isn't that good provide some better alternatives please?

Uh oh, you had to go and launch hater's kryptonite.  So far we've heard about how Bandcamp is supposedly on a "path to irrelevancy," yet my understanding of irrelevance in such things as entertainment and retail requires something else becoming relevant in place of the thing that has become irrelevant.

So, those with a disdain for Bandcamp, please tell us to which music distribution outlet we should flock to instead. Perhaps one that accepts Venmo or some other form of payment more popular amongst the youth of today?

[Starship Krupa]

10 minutes ago, Philip G Hunt said:

those people who preach that the internet is a utopia in which the artist can finally be free and make money from their work? I'd like to stamp on their family jewels.  The internet hasn't freed anyone. It's just redefined the prison boundaries.

I hold a fairly positive attitude, but I think the most important word is "CAN." As throughout the history of getting paid for creating music, there's no guarantee of "WILL" or "HOW MUCH."

"The internet" is no more responsible for ripping off musicians and listeners than "the radio spectrum" was 25 years ago. Parasitic organizations will spring up no matter how the information gets around, All the internet is is a faster, cheaper, and more direct way for information to get from one place to another. I will say that the channels that the internet has opened up have made it more possible for small-timers to connect with an audience (and even earn money) than before such channels existed. It's not created any goldmines or licenses to print money, but what ever has?

The idea that one person, or a small group of people together could earn more than (or even) a comfortable living playing music is one that only had traction for a small period of human history, starting in the late 1950's.

It's always been difficult to make a living from creating music. It still is. If the only difference is that now it's easier for me to discover new artists that I love to listen to and buy their music in high-resolution form while allowing them to keep 90% of what I pay instead of 12%, that's a big improvement in my eyes.