How a Music Platform’s Acquisition Led to Mass Layoffs

Bandcamp is an online record store and music community where passionate fans discover, connect with, and directly support the artists they love. It is also a platform for artists to sell their music and merchandise directly to their fans.

Bandcamp has a variety of features, such as streaming, downloading, wishlisting, following, fan accounts, artist accounts, label accounts, gift cards, and more. Bandcamp also publishes a daily blog and a weekly radio show featuring new and notable music from the site.

The latest news on Bandcamp is that the company has been acquired by Songtradr, a music licensing platform, from Epic Games, a video game publisher. However, this acquisition has resulted in layoffs of half of Bandcamp’s staff, which has sparked outrage and concern among the music community. Bandcamp is a popular indie music platform that allows artists to sell their music directly to fans and keep most of the revenue.

Bandcamp also hosts Bandcamp Fridays, a monthly event where the company waives its fees and gives 100% of the sales to the artists. Bandcamp has a loyal fan base and a reputation for being artist-friendly and supportive of diverse genres and causes.

Some of the news articles that cover this topic are:

Bandcamp’s new owner lays off half the company, which reports on the statement from Songtradr that 50% of Bandcamp employees have accepted offers to join Songtradr, and the rest have been let go. The article also mentions that Bandcamp employees were in the process of unionizing and had sent a letter to Songtradr with their demands.

Half of Bandcamp’s Staff Laid Off After Songtradr Acquisition, which provides more details on the history of Bandcamp and its previous acquisition by Epic Games in 2022. The article also quotes Songtradr CEO Paul Wiltshire, who said that he is committed to keeping the existing Bandcamp services that fans and artists love.

Half of Bandcamp’s 120-person staff laid off following second sale in 18 months, which gives some background on Songtradr and its business model of licensing music to brands, films, TV shows, and games. The article also notes that Songtradr has not yet confirmed whether it will recognize the Bandcamp United union.