One of the worst tech labor years ever continues with the news that roughly half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off. Bandcamp employees are reporting the news via social media.

about half the company was laid off today. some of the most incredible people i’ve ever worked with, including two of my amazing editorial colleagues @diamonde and @atoosamoinzadeh and most of the incredible support staff among many others. this is a loss, no two ways about it

— jj skolnik (@modernistwitch) October 16, 2023

Epic Games bought the indie music platform back in 2022 for an undisclosed amount before selling it barely a year later.

Late last month, Epic Games laid off 16 percent of its workforce, or 830 employees, due to what CEO Tim Sweeney described as overspending. Epic also revealed that it would sell the Bandcamp business to California-based music licensing company Songtradr. In that announcement, Epic disclosed that an additional 250 people would be leaving Epic either through receiving offers from Songtradr or Epic’s divesture from its SuperAwesome ad business. Employees who did not receive offers from Songtradr were notified today and will be eligible for severance.

In an email to The Verge, Songtradr confirmed that 50 percent of Bandcamp employees have been extended offers to join Songtradr and reaffirmed from a previous statement the company’s commitment to keeping the Bandcamp experience the same.

Songtradr’s statement also confirmed that its purchase of Bandcamp had been completed, but it did not confirm if it would voluntarily recognize Bandcamp’s union that employees won earlier this year, despite pressure from employees and the Bandcamp community.

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[–] Pxtl@lemmy.ca 46 points 11 months ago (1 children)

God damn. Bandcamp is where I get my music wherever possible - they're an amazing platform and product and I like the fact that my purchases are going to support the actual artists instead of vanishing into the Google or Spotify machinery.

I knew it was possible after the Epic sale that they'd get screwed, but this worse than I expected.

And here in Canada, their main competitors for buying online music are Apple and 7digital. Not great options, considering that 7digital is also owned by Songtradr now.

[–] hedge@beehaw.org 32 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

😡 Could a bunch of artists get together and turn it into a coop or something like that? Something that isn't forced to constantly grow or be liquidated? Dunno, just a random idea.

[–] bl4kers@beehaw.org 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This already exists: https://resonate.coop/coop/

[–] hedge@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago

Nice! 👍 Maybe they could join forces with bandcamp!

[–] toothpicks@beehaw.org 5 points 11 months ago

Anyone wants to do this let's get something started haha. Or drop suggestions for existing things!

[–] chloyster@beehaw.org 31 points 11 months ago (2 children)

This sucks so much. Why'd epic even want them in the first place. This feels like it was so avoidable

[–] theDoctor@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 11 months ago

Because money.

When you sell to a big corporation their only goal is to milk every dollar possible.

And it will keep happening again and again until the system changes or people with more conscience than greed decide not to sell to the highest bidder.

It’s not good enough to be profitable. It’s good enough when your current workforce is at its breaking point because you can barely get the required work done. Then you announce record profits, the investment banks expect even more growth next quarter, the employees are thanked with a canned letter from the CEO for their hard work, you cut a division in half while increasing their work, hire a consulting firm that will do a crap job on a project but you don’t have to pay benefits, and then give your employees a negative review for poor time management of an impossible workload and do it all again.

I’m not jaded at all. :(

[–] taanegl@beehaw.org 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Mmmm I'm guessing access to publishing rights, as a games publisher. It's easy to negotiate with yourself...

...like musicians haven't been fucked enough by the IP industry. Word to Max Romeo.

We need to send UMG to outer space so that they can find another race.. or maybe aim for the sun.

[–] setto@fed.dyne.org 1 points 11 months ago

the sun. or a blackhole. even if they're mad evil, aliens don't deserve this punishment

[–] bbbhltz@beehaw.org 22 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is disappointing. Bandcamp is just plain excellent. Where else can I get decent recs and be able to dl them in flac...Qobuz? And lose the human side?

[–] glad_cat@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 11 months ago

You can’t subscribe to Qobuz with a VPN. It’s dead for me.

[–] toothpicks@beehaw.org 13 points 11 months ago

Well figured things would go downhill when Epic came in but still this fuckin sucks

[–] termus@beehaw.org 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Super bummed to hear this. My local music collection stagnated once I had Spotify for so many years. When they brought on Rogan I saved my playlists and canceled my sub. Not gonna support that shit. BandCamp has been my go to purchase albums from the smaller bands I listen to. It's been great downloading FLAC versions and streaming through PlexAmp. As a music distributer I like the options they give bands and users. Sad that Epic fucked them over.

[–] scytale@lemm.ee 6 points 11 months ago

I knew this was coming when they were acquired. All my music is on streaming (via distributor) but I was contemplating to also put my music on bandcamp in case anyone was interested in actually paying more than $0.0003 to listen to it.

[–] tux0r@feddit.de 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Time for Myspace to rise again!

[–] taanegl@beehaw.org 6 points 11 months ago

Tom, we need you!

[–] sodalite@slrpnk.net 5 points 11 months ago

lmao maybe so!

[–] hedge@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago

Forgot they were unionized, if that helps at all…

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 1 points 11 months ago

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

Click here to see the summary

One of the worst tech labor years ever continues with the news that roughly half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off.

Epic Games bought the indie music platform back in 2022 for an undisclosed amount before selling it barely a year later.

Late last month, Epic Games laid off 16 percent of its workforce, or 830 employees, due to what CEO Tim Sweeney described as overspending.

Epic also revealed that it would sell the Bandcamp business to California-based music licensing company Songtradr.

Employees who did not receive offers from Songtradr were notified today and will be eligible for severance.

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