Bandcamp Updates

Songtradr, a music licensing platform and marketplace company supporting artists, labels, and publishers, has acquired Bandcamp from Epic Games. 

Bandcamp will continue to operate as a marketplace and music community with an artist-first revenue share. Songtradr will also offer Bandcamp artists the ability and choice to have their music licensed to all forms of media including content creators, game and app developers, and brands. This will enable artists to continue to own and control their music rights, and increase their earning capacity from Songtradr’s global licensing network.

To read the statement in full, visit songtradr.com.

Today we’re excited to announce Listening Parties –  a new way to celebrate and build support for your album on Bandcamp.

It takes a lot of hard work to finish an album, and even more work to win your fans’ attention during a release campaign. Listening Parties are here to help! They let you and your fans listen to your album together in real time. Fans can ask questions, share reactions, and buy the album directly from the event. Whether you’re premiering a pre-order, celebrating release day, or commemorating a classic, a Listening Party is a fun and organic way to share your album with your most supportive fans.

Listening Parties are the ideal companion to a new release, so we made it easy to schedule an event directly from the album editor. Just set a date and description of the event, and we’ll take care of the rest. We notify all of your followers, and at showtime the album plays from start to finish automatically. All the tracks, artwork, and merch that you’ve already uploaded to the album are featured, and fans can wishlist or buy the album in all available formats without leaving the party. 

To check it out for yourself, log in to your artist account and visit the album editor or +add menu. You can even preview a draft event if you just want to test the waters. Listening Parties are free to host and attend. You’ll find featured events on the homepage, and even more on the Bandcamp Live schedule page. We hope you enjoy!

Today, a majority of eligible Bandcamp workers voted 31-7 in favor of forming Bandcamp United, a union represented by the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU). The vote results now await certification by the National Labor Relations Board, with a collective bargaining process to follow.

Below is a joint statement from Bandcamp co-founder Ethan Diamond and Bandcamp United:

“Bandcamp United and Bandcamp management are committed to working together to continue to advance fair economic conditions for our workers and the artists who rely on us. We look forward to negotiating with an open mind and working in good faith to promote the best interests of all of our staff and the artist and label community we serve.”

Contact: press@bandcampunited.org; press@bandcamp.com

Good news, we’ve made some big improvements to searching on Bandcamp. 

• You can now search using combinations of artist, track, album, and label names. Try searching for an artist name + album name to find exactly what you’re looking for.
• New releases used to take several hours to show up in search. Now they appear immediately.
• These changes are already live on the web, and you’ll find them in the Android and iOS apps soon.

Happy searching!

May 20, 2022 update: Under an agreement encouraged by the court, Bandcamp will continue to operate using our existing payment system on Android devices. Fans can keep supporting artists on Android as they have, and we’ll continue paying artists the same share of sales (typically within 24-48 hours, as we do today). Bandcamp will place 10% of the revenue generated from digital sales on Android devices in escrow until Epic’s ongoing case against Google is resolved, a cost we will bear. Moving forward, we’ll continue the fight to allow artist-first business models like ours on Android. You can read the court filing here.

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Since 2015, artists and labels have used Bandcamp’s Android app to sell music and merchandise directly to their fans, and we have used our own billing system to process payments, consistent with Google’s guidelines which specifically exempted digital music from incurring a revenue share. However, Google is now modifying its rules to require Bandcamp (and other apps like it) to exclusively use Google Play Billing for payments for digital goods and services, and pay a revenue share to Google. If Google’s policy changes stand, beginning on June 1st, we would have to either pass Google’s fees on to consumers (making Android a less attractive platform for music fans), pass fees on to artists (which we would never do), permanently run our Android business at a loss, or turn off digital sales in the Android app. Furthermore, the policy changes would impact our ability to pay artists quickly – instead of receiving payment after 24 to 48 hours, artists may not be paid until 15 to 45 days after a sale.

Bandcamp’s mission is to help spread the healing power of music by building a community where artists thrive through the direct support of their fans, and where fans gather to explore the amazing musical universe that their direct support helps create. That community now consists of over 500,000 independent artists and 11,000 independent labels who rely on the support of the millions of music fans on Bandcamp to fund their next record, buy groceries, or pay their rent, mortgage, or utility bill. We believe it’s imperative for fans to be able to express that critical support on Android, and so to stop Google from implementing these new policies for Bandcamp and other developers, Epic is filing a motion to seek a court injunction allowing Bandcamp to continue operating as we have (you can read our filing here and my declaration here).

We know that many people use Bandcamp’s Android app to listen to their music purchases, and we are committed to making sure that option remains available. With today’s filing, we hope to ensure fans can also continue to buy music and merchandise through the Android app, and that as much of their support as possible reaches the artist as quickly as possible.

Ethan Diamond
Bandcamp co-founder and CEO

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