On March 20th online music platform Bandcamp, decided to waive their sales fees. This decision was made of course in light of the current Coronavirus situation. The co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond said “For many artists, a single day of boosted sales can mean the difference between being able to pay rent or not.” In addition to waiving the fees, Bandcamp also released a list of ideas and resources to help artists while their shows are cancelled.
Waiving the fees was certainly a success for Bandcamp and musicians on the platform who reported their largest single day sales in the company’s 11 year history. Musicians with material on Bandcamp generated 4.3 million dollars in sales, which is 15x their standard for a Friday.
The press surrounding Bandcamp’s decision to waive fees started a trend that several labels chose to follow as well. Fat Possum, Sub Pop, Merge records and others also choose to give their artists 100% of revenue to artists on March 20th as well. As the pandemic continues it will be interesting to see if labels and platforms like Bandcamp will choose to do this more frequently.
Frances Mehlenbacher
April 15, 2020 — 8:14 pm
I think it was a really smart move on Bandcamp’s part to waive their fees, seeing as it was beneficial to both the artists and Bandcamp’s company. Since then, there have been some petitions and arguments to try to get other streaming platforms to either waive their fees or raise the artist’s payments. Immediately after Bandcamp waived their fees, Evan Greer created a petition asking Spotify to triple their payments to artists. I think this could be an interesting move on Spotify’s part, seeing as they have received a lot of criticism in the past for underpaying their artists (only paying between $0.006 to $0.0084 per stream).
Link – https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/19/musicians-ask-spotify-to-triple-payments-to-cover-lost-concert-revenue
Dean Merritt
April 16, 2020 — 1:32 pm
I was happy to see Bandcamp looking out for their musicians. In an NPR article about the topic, CEO Ethan Diamond reminded everyone that more than just musicians will be effected by COVID-19. My first thought was local record stores! Record stores stay open through having a physical storefront, and many people may be unaware if a record store has an online presence. If I remember correctly the guys at harvest seemed wary to sell online? Many tech companies have gained a lot of following through the COVID-19 Pandemic, Perhaps there is a way to push awareness of record stores with online stores or help record stores distribute through those platforms.
Link: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/18/817740137/bandcamp-will-forfeit-its-share-of-sales-this-friday