I think we'll be seeing RIP: Bandcamp in the not distant future

[thewayne]

There's been an interesting revelation and nasty development in the sale of Bandcamp by Epic Games to Songtradr. Approximately half of the staff have been dumped. And it turns out that the sale was an ASSET SALE with "no legal requirement to retain employees or recognize the union". Wow, what a weasel way to operate! I mean, I've heard of a company shedding assets in bankruptcy reorgs, but that's not what's going on here!

Late stage capitalism or what?

From the LA Times article: "Songtradr has not officially recognized the Bandcamp United union, which had been demanding Songtradr extend an offer to all employees and provide severance packages to those who declined to stay on board. Because the transaction was an asset sale, Songtradr had no legal requirement to retain employees or recognize the union."

So the name moves, the assets move, and almost all of the people are gone. One thing that I found confusing was one article said that Bandcamp had 830 employees, then this LA Times article says "A representative for Songtradr told The Times that 60 of Bandcamp’s 118 employees were offered the opportunity to retain their position, and that 58 workers had accepted."

Seems to me that this is fertile ground for another big company to swoop in, recruit all of these suddenly displaced people, and restart Bandcamp under a new name with fresh funding. I, not being a billionaire and successful businessman, will not be doing this.

The Slashdot article summary references a San Francisco Chronicle article that first complained that I was using an ad blocker. When I unblocked the article, it then wanted me to subscribe. Fortunately someone on Slashdot pointed to the LA Times article which just wanted ads unblocked. I then went back and re-blocked the Chronicle.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-10-16/bandcamp-layoffs-songtradr-epic-games

https://slashdot.org/story/23/10/17/0226239/bandcamp-slashes-nearly-half-its-staff-after-epic-sale

Comments

[dewline]

Epic Games and Songtradr both seem...badly behaved, don't they.

[thewayne]

They most certainly do.

[disneydream06]

Here's hoping somebody is smart and does come in and gets a 2.0 version going and show that other company how much they screwed up. :)
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Here's hoping indeed!

[fairy69]

in any event, I know many musicians who use BandCamp to make money as an alternative means to iTunes, etc. so now what for them? This sucks so bad.

[thewayne]

I haven't yet seen anything on terms for artists being changed, we'll have to wait and see what happens.  I expect the site's customer service for musicians to degrade, it's inevitable with the number of people who have been sacked.  I'm hoping another similar service will arise and there will be an exodus, we shall see.

[silveradept]

There's certainly an opportunity for another platform to surge up with more favorable terms than Bandcamp gave to artists, or to provide a turnkey solution for artists themselves to handle the sale of their music digitally, and then offer the thing they really want - a curation and promotion service such that people can find somewhere to trust to help them find cool new acts, or well-established ones, and give their money directly to the artists. The reason Bandcamp Friday is so popular was because it was actual artist support, rather than artists not getting nearly as much as they deserved for each sale. We've all figured out that record companies and their contracts are scammy and profit the companies far more than the artists, so any platform that can provide the maximum amount of profits to the artist will be the one that everyone wants to use.

Also, I believe that, "coincidentally," all of the employees who were part of the union bargaining team were laid off in the sale. SFGate article says that the unionized employees were hit disproportionately hard in the layoffs, so I think we can safely accuse Songtradr and Epic of union-busting tactics as well.

[thewayne]

I'm glad you were able to access the article.  That will be interesting to see how it plays out as union-busting tactics can definitely be the grounds for lawsuits and gov't investigations, especially if the Dems get another four years as they currently have a strong pro-union bent.

[silveradept]

I feel like that regulation just passed that says "if you do union-busting shit, do not pass Go, congratulations, you have a union, start negotiating with them," should be put through its paces on this bit, because the sale itself certainly seems structured to have given the opportunity to union-bust.