Is this the end of the most beloved music service?

Yesterday, Bandcamp shockingly announced its acquisition by Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite and Unreal Engine and the first reactions by the music community were not that good…

Bandcamp is an online music marketplace that was highly praised by independent musicians around the world for being the fairest marketplace out there. Musicians can sell their music (digital or physical copies) and get paid while Bandcamp only received a small fee from its transaction. By doing that, lots of producers manage to make a living out of their music without needing to have millions of streams to just get the minimum wage.

Bandcamp’s traditional way of distributing music is the answer to the unfair streaming game, and that’s why musicians and fans love it. It is a company with a mission to support musicians and producers while still being a viable business.

And today, with the acquisition of a multi-billion company, we all fear that everything is about to change for the worse…

So let’s go through Bandcamp’s official statement by Ethan Diamond, co-founder and CEO of Bandcamp, and analyze every point made.

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.

So, the first important thing to note is that the current features that fans and musicians use and love will stay the same. Their revenue model, Bandcamp Friday (where Bandcamp waives their fees on every 1st Friday of each month, giving all the earnings to artists), and their Daily Highlights will not be changed and continue to exist.

The most valued feature is Bandcamp’s artist-first revenue model that made them so successful and helped artists sell their music while still getting most of the earnings themselves, which will remain as is. This is the reason Bandcamp is so respected within the industry and changing that would be catastrophic for their reputation and fanbase.

However, the most interesting point in the announcement is their plans to expand their live streaming services. In November 2020, Bandcamp launched its live streaming service to provide musicians with a platform for playing live and connecting to their fans.

Now if Bandcamp’s and Epic’s plan is to expand on a live streaming platform like Twitch or create a new music streaming service like Spotify (or even both!?), that remains to be seen. I surely hope that they will create a brand new music streaming app to compete with Spotify & Apple music and try to shake the industry.

The streaming industry is definitely broken and we could use a breath of fresh air. Especially by someone who has reportedly respected musicians.

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.

Just like in the first paragraph, they clearly state that they’re not planning to change their core values and their mission and that Epic Games supports that. That of course remains to be seen. Epic Games will still want to make money out of this deal and we can only hope that they won’t try to do it on the backs of the artists.

So why Bandcamp users are so skeptical about this acquisition?

As I scroll around Social Media, I see lots of artists share their concerns and disappointment about this news. And to a point, I get them. We all knew Bandcamp as an independent business that grew alongside its users. People were constantly praising their ethics and the value they provided to the industry and they now fear that everything will change. They fear that their favorite service, which once stood next to all artists, will now become just another corporation that focuses only on profits.

Their official statement is full of promises, but people have seen the same story again and again. Merges and acquisitions rarely are for the best of the smaller company that is absorbed by a bigger one.

In their own official statement, Epic Games states:

Fair and open platforms are critical to the future of the creator economy. Epic and Bandcamp share a mission of building the most artist friendly platform that enables creators to keep the majority of their hard-earned money. Bandcamp will play an important role in Epic’s vision to build out a creator marketplace ecosystem for content, technology, games, art, music and more.

They both seem to understand the power of fairness and ethics on a mistreated community like the music community. We can just wait and see if they will live up to their promises.

Is there a silver lining in the future?

In my opinion, yes.

As we all know, money makes the world go round but more important is to put the money in the right hands. Until now, Ethan and the whole Bandcamp team never let us down. They all worked to benefit musicians and to create a supportive and caring community for independent artists. I have no reason to believe that they will now become pure evil just because Epic Games invested in their company.

If they keep building on the same foundations that Bandcamp has already set, there is a big chance that Bandcamp can soon one of the biggest platforms in the music industry. Always with an artist-first mentality.

I remain optimistic about this move. And I sincerely hope Bandcamp will grow even bigger and continue to support artists all around the world.

Some wild predictions and recommendations for the new era of Bandcamp

If I could magically create the perfect platform for musicians, I would probably do the following. And I hope Bandcamp will follow a similar path.

A new music streaming service that doesn’t suffocate musicians.

I think the time is right for a revolution on the music streaming services. Spotify, Apple Music, etc have created a dystopian landscape for musicians. With the false promises that anyone can become the next big thing in music, they managed to have every musician release music to their platforms and pay them the least they could per stream. It is absolutely absurd that anyone can just pay 10€ per month and have access to every piece of music ever made available.

Bandcamp’s community is more used to actually paying for music so having a slightly pricier music streaming service that also pays musicians a fair amount can be possible. I grew up at a time when I spent around 50€-60€ every single week to buy new albums and music in physical copies. So having to pay far less for my digital music is still a win for me and my wallet.

What a new streaming format could look like?

You could still have a monthly subscription that would get you credits for buying the music you want for a small fee (that would mostly go to the musician) and build your catalog.

In Spotify, if for example, you have 1.000 listeners that listen to your song 2 times on average you get 2.000 streams that give you 2.000*0.0038€ = 7.60€. What if you got only 200 listeners that were willing to pay for your song 0.1€ and listen to it unlimited times? If you got only 80% from that, it would make you 200*0.1*0.8 = 16€. Double the money from Spotify with 1/5 of the listeners. And if you had the same amount of listeners you would get 80€ just for one of your songs.

A model like that would enable musicians to make music for a living much quicker than Spotify and all its alternatives. And it would not hurt fans cause if, for example, they paid a 15€ subscription, they could “buy“ 150 tracks every single month for your music streaming! More than enough.

A live streaming platform for concerts and small gigs

The pandemic crushed the music industry and live performances. At the same time, Fortnite hosted the biggest virtual concerts ever made.

Bandcamp could expand its live streaming service to become the musician’s Twitch and enable performers to sell online tickets and merch. Virtual/ Online concerts are going to be a huge thing in the future and I’m sure people in the industry already know it.

Having a platform where you could sell digital music, physical albums, merch, tickets, and more is amazing. Bandcamp already has all those options and now they can expand on it even more.

In conclusion, I want to believe that this move is for the best. It can benefit musicians by adding competition to the industry and by providing a different and more sustainable income source. But for this to happen, Bandcamp’s DNA must stay the same.

I think it’s very soon to start dismissing Bandcamp. It is a company that supported artists for years and I honestly hope it will continue doing it.

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