I buy some of my music from Bandcamp. It describes itself thus: “Bandcamp is an online record store and music community where passionate fans connect with and directly support the artists they love.” As one of those saddos who still pay for their music because I want the musicians I like to get paid properly for their work, it’s one of the ways in which I can directly support them. Another is buying direct from their websites. Bandcamp has ensured that artists have been paid $1.2 billion for their music, $193 million this year alone. A week or so I learned that Bandcamp has been sold to a start-up music licence company called Songtradr. Another small part of me has died.
My loyal reader will know that at the very heart of me sits a dreamer. And in my little dream-like world I dream that people know the value of something and not just the price. Most people like some kind of music and some of us consider ourselves to be utter obsessives, beyond help and not really wanting help. While I have no musical talent, I respect and perhaps envy those who do have it, to the extent that I want them to succeed and to succeed they need to generate an income. Bandcamp and its worldwide community of musicians and record labels was almost a marriage made in heaven.
We do know yet know whether even the name Bandcamp will survive under what may well become corporate ownership or that it will continue to function as it has done since it was founded in 2007. The very fact that it has been taken over twice in the last year suggests change will come, change that will be detrimental to all parties from musician to record buyer and everyone in between. I worry that the current model does not fit in too well with our capitalist way of life.
“Every dollar realized (sic) from a Bandcamp Friday sale represents 31,250 Spotify streams,” reports The Guardian, which shows both the music-enhancing benefits of Bandcamp and the sheer rip-off nature of streaming theft by Spotify. I hope that illustrates why I am so upset by the sale of the company, upset that must be a million fold greater to actual musicians.
Bandcamp is great but the corporate world it isn’t, or wasn’t. And if Songtradr, which has already fired half the Bandcamp workforce, cares only about profit and not actual music, it’s another massive kick in the teeth for everyone who loves music and believes musicians should be paid fairly.
