On Sept. 28, CEO of Epic Games Tim Sweeney published a statement announcing the company plans to sell Bandcamp — an online music store they had bought only 18 months prior — to Songtradr, and will lay off 16 percent of the company’s staff.
Bandcamp is a listening platform for small artists that allows fans to directly support artists. In just 16 years, fans have paid artists and their labels $1.2 billion using Bandcamp, with $193 million last year alone — over half a million dollars on average each day. Songtradr is a music licensing marketplace, so at first glance, it seems like this deal could be a great change in management. It could allow for more artists to be discovered and make a living off of their music, while also keeping all of the features of Bandcamp that users love, such as Bandcamp Fridays and Bandcamp Daily.
Songtradr announced this acquisition on Sept. 28 along with some of the company’s plans for Bandcamp’s future. “The acquisition of Bandcamp will help Songtradr continue to grow its suite of services for artists,” Paul Wiltshire, CEO of Songtradr said. Vice president and general manager of Epic Games Steve Allison echoed this sentiment, saying that selling Bandcamp to Songtradr “will make it easier for independent artists to connect with creators and developers looking to license their music.”
However, Songtradr’s hopeful announcement did not entail the mass layoff of Bandcamp’s staff that would soon follow its acquisition. On Oct. 16, not even a month after the original sale, Songtradr laid off half of the Bandcamp employees. According to Ash Parrish from the Verge, Songtradr said it still stood by its previous statement about its “commitment to keeping the Bandcamp experience the same.” Parrish also wrote that Songtradr did not confirm if it would recognize Bandcamp’s union.
This union, also known as Bandcamp United, was recognized by Epic Games in May this year. Songtradr laying off half of Bandcamp’s staff without any prior notice nor recognition of the union, had both employees and users shocked and upset. Bandcamp United even launched a petition to have Songtradr recognize their union, which has gained over 12,000 signatures in under two weeks.
In the union’s statement, Ed Bair, a Bandcamp support specialist, said, “Songtradr not immediately recognizing Bandcamp United is a worrying indicator that they have misunderstood the value of Bandcamp. It’s not a platform or a portal, it is a painstakingly hand-crafted community. The workers who make up Bandcamp United are essential for the future of Bandcamp.”
Statements from the remaining employees at Bandcamp are especially worrying for the future of Bandcamp. According to Molly Loe of TechHQ, a former Bandcamp employee said, “The editorial department that promotes new music has been gutted and is down to only three people.”
For a company supporting tens of thousands of small artists, how can merely three people be expected to cover artists’ new music at the same level as the prior amount of employees in that department? This alone makes Songtradr’s promises of keeping Bandcamp the same as before appear flimsy.
Additionally, Philip Sherburne from Pitchfork reported that Songtradr said this layoff was a required adjustment due to the rising operational costs of Bandcamp. However, Songtradr is worth $300 million and just acquired another company for $23.4 million in March. “[It] leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of many that the company feels a need to cut down on Bandcamp employees because of ‘rising operational costs,’” Loe said.
Regardless, it seems that Songtradr is more focused on profiting off Bandcamp than truly providing the best conditions for the artists using it. Bandcamp United has still not been recognized as a union as of now, and users and employees can only hope that it will be.
“And if Songtradr did implode — or, perhaps worse, strip Bandcamp for parts and discard the rest — the consequences could be catastrophic for independent music,” Sherburne said. “We don’t know what is going to happen, but now is the time to begin imagining and building new alternatives.”
Naomi Bloom can be reached at [email protected].
