Matt Cowan/Getty Pictures
In a significant pivot for a platform that had touted itself as a extra artist-friendly vacation spot than streaming giants like Spotify and Apple Music, the brand new proprietor of Bandcamp is chopping a major variety of workers.
Songtradr, the Santa Monica-based music licensing service that acquired Bandcamp from Epic Video games, stated on Monday that it had closed the deal for the music discovery platform and had begun layoffs of employees. Some 60 Bandcamp staffers, out of 118, have been provided employment to hitch Songtradr’s employees of 369 staff, an organization spokesperson informed The Hollywood Reporter.
“Over the previous few years the working prices of Bandcamp have considerably elevated,” a rep for Songtradr acknowledged. “It required some changes to make sure a sustainable and wholesome firm that may serve its neighborhood of artists and followers. After a complete analysis, together with the significance of roles for easy enterprise operations and pre current capabilities at Songtradr, 50 % of Bandcamp workers have accepted presents to hitch Songtradr.”
Bandcamp’s time as an Epic Video games product — it was acquired in March 2022 by the maker of Fortnite and the Unreal Engine — lasted lower than two years. On the time, Epic Video games government Steve Allison thought the acquisition would add to “Epic’s strategy to supporting creators throughout all media and enabling them to attach immediately with their followers.”
However there was by no means a transparent match between the gaming large’s ambitions and a platform recognized for a signature day — Bandcamp Fridays — to offer impartial musicians with a much bigger reduce of income from the acquisition and obtain particular person tracks and albums. Based in 2008 and run by Ethan Diamond, Bandcamp discovered a distinct segment in selling indie music and its editorial writers labored to highlight picks and run interviews and options on artists in an analogous model as a music journal.
In a be aware on Sept. 28, Epic Video games CEO Tim Sweeney stated the choice to divest Bandcamp was made in tandem with cost-cutting measures that would come with chopping 830 of its personal workers. Sweeney famous that Fortnite‘s “development is pushed primarily by creator content material with vital income sharing, and it is a decrease margin enterprise than we had when Fortnite Battle Royale took off.”
In unveiling its deal to purchase Bandcamp in late September, Songtradr signaled that its reasoning for buying the platform included providing “artists the flexibility and option to have their music licensed to all types of media together with content material creators, recreation and app builders and types.” Bandcamp’s giant roster of eclectic musicians throughout genres might assist bolster the licensing platform’s broader sync licensing goals in movie, TV and industrial initiatives.
