Bandcamp Research and Analysis

Peter Beard

Cirino

Digital Distribution

March 8th, 2019

Founded in 2007 by Ethan Diamond, Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, and turning profit by 2012, Bandcamp is a company whose sole purpose was and is to benefit the modern-day independent artist. It grew rapidly to become one of the most important and profitable ways for independent artists and labels to make money. The artist retains 80–85% of the profit from every sale, which is very atypical for digital service providers. According to the Bandcamp “About” page, “The New York Times called Bandcamp “one of the greatest underground-culture bazaars of our time,” Fast Company named us one of the most innovative companies in music, and the American Association of Independent Music honored us with their Independent Champion award.”

Bandcamp provides all of the basic features that DSPs should have. This includes in-depth streaming statistics, honorable payouts, and even available job listings within the industry. This is one of the many ways Bandcamp goes above and beyond other providers. The most important and most telling statistics are the payout numbers, which are extremely impressive given the service is absolutely free to use. Here are some recent user statistics found in the bandcamp “about” section. “Fans have paid artists $364 million using Bandcamp, and $7.8 million in the past 30 days alone.” This was posted in 2017 so the numbers have probably risen since then. (bandcamp.com/about)

Bandcamp stands out primarily in regards to it’s payout function. Bandcamp pays out daily and the payout rates, as mentioned before, are superior to other competing DSPs. To help put this into perspective here’s a chart detailing music payout rates from other DSPs.

By averaging together the amounts paid to the artist for every dollar earned (Tidal — $0.011, Apple Music — $0.0064, Google Play — $0.0064, Deezer — $0.0056, Spotify — $0.0038, Pandora — $0.0011, Youtube — $0.0006) the math comes out to artists receiving about 0.005 cents per dollar earned on average on the most popular streaming sites. This is an important statistic to consider. Compared to the average of artists being paid 0.005% of their earnings, bandcamp is paying 80%-85% to the artists. It’s important to note that the above statistics in the graph are for streaming payouts and not purchased music, but money earned is money earned regardless. Bandcamp’s understanding of the struggle independent artists face truly separates itself from other platforms. Another feature worth mentioning is the ability to set a streaming limit on your albums or singles. For instance, one can set the streaming limit to 5 streams and so after a listener has streamed the song five times, they must purchase it. This is a powerful feature not only in terms of money making but in terms of creating a real fan base. Once a listener has streamed the song five times and then gone back to buy it, the artist now knows that the song has replay value and such a replay value that the listener can’t go on in their daily life without paying to permanently add this track to their arsenal of music. This is a very fair system and more so an analytical system beyond the analytics that Bandcamp already offers artists. These features include but are not limited to statistics on daily, weekly, yearly, and all-time number of listens, the locations of listeners, and whether or not a listener skipped a track, partially skipped it, or listened from start to finish. These unique tools help infinitely with refining one’s craft and product to be the best it can be.

There are many success stories that have begun on bandcamp but all of them are contemporary. One found on Gizmodo.com was uniquely compelling. The article was titled, “Meet the Prodigy Who Made 11 Bandcamp Albums That Eventually Got Him a Record Deal,” and goes on to detail a story in which a 21-year-old Will Toledo had been releasing music since he was a teen on bandcamp and eventually had Chris Lombardi from Matador Records reach out to him after his 11th release. This story really speaks volumes in terms of illuminating the importance of bandcamp. Record labels are now looking on bandcamp to recruit entirely independent artists. The unsuccessful stories of bandcamp are too many to tell, as the website is absolutely packed to the brim with similar sounding bands that can’t distinguish themselves from their respective subgenres. However, the success stories that came out of the website are absolutely indicative of outside the box creativity, and a will to create and publish music. Bandcamp is the perfect platform for it.

I ran a poll to survey the overall opinion and knowledge surrounding bandcamp and the results were interesting. Here are a few of the questions and results from the poll.

Question:

What is your primary “search engine,” for new, independent music?

1)Bandcamp

2)Youtube

3)Spotify

4)Apple Music

5)Other (fill in)

Results

2 said Bandcamp

6 said YouTube

1 said Spotify

1 said Other (Apple Music)

Analysis

The data shows that bandcamp wasn’t as well known as I had thought. However, Youtube does seem to be the primary search engine for quick music searches currently, so this did not surprise me.

Question:

Have you heard of Bandcamp?

1) Yes

2) No

Results

6 said yes

4 said no

Analysis

This data revealed the same information the last question’s data provided, however, this does paint a more accurate picture of the overall awareness of bandcamp’s existence.

Question:

If you have heard about Bandcamp, how did you find out about it?

1) Local or independent artist

2) Word of mouth

3) Other

Results

2 said they heard about it from a local or independent artist

3 said word of mouth

1 said other (and didn’t specify)

Analysis

This data was on par with what was expected. Most bandcamp users find out about it from fellow musicians and local artists. This makes sense as bandcamp doesn’t have as much to offer the listener as it has to offer the artist.

Question:

Bandcamp is free to use and pays out 80%-85% of your earnings daily. Would you use bandcamp if you were an independent artist?

1)Yes

2)No

Results

9-yes

1-no

Analysis

This data is self-explanatory. Bandcamp’s dedication to the fair treatment of independent artists is unparalleled.

Bandcamp’s popularity is rising rapidly. Bandcamp’s CEO, Ethan Diamond, said that “Bandcamp’s model is based on a revenue share. It’s 15 percent on digital, 10 percent on physical, and in that way, our success is tied to the success of the artist. So we only make money if the artist makes a whole lot more money.”(www.marketplace.org) They truly care about the artist and can’t turn a profit without the artist turning an even greater profit themselves. This means the company invests in the artist more primarily than other companies with lower payout business models. When defending bandcamps business model when being compared to the streaming giants, Diamond wrote,

“Standalone music streaming companies continued to lose money in 2017, and industry-wide record sales continued to decline: in the U.S., digital album sales dropped 20%, tracks were down 23%, and physical sales fell 20% — -the seemingly inevitable upshot of these two trends is that the majority of music consumption will eventually take place within the subscription rental services of two or three enormous corporations, who can afford to lose money on music because it attracts customers to the parts of their businesses that are profitable.”(www.complex.com)

He illuminates how these business models use artists in a way that isn’t as beneficial to the artist as the company and that resonates. He finished the post by saying “We want a music platform to exist where the playing field is level, where artists are compensated fairly and transparently, and where fans can both stream and own their music collections.” The mission is truly honorable and I think we will definitely see the continual and exponential rise of bandcamp over the next few years.

WORKS CITED:

• Sanchez, Daniel. “What Streaming Music Services Pay (Updated for 2017).” Digital Music News, 9 Sept. 2018, www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/07/24/what-streaming-music-services-pay-updated-for-2017/.
• Mahadevan, Tara. “Musicians Earned Over $270 Million From Bandcamp Last Year.” Complex, Complex, 1 June 2018, www.complex.com/music/2018/02/musicians-earned-270-million-dollars-from-bandcamp-last-year.
• “Bandcamp CEO Sees Music as Art, Not Commodity.” Marketplace, Marketplace, www.marketplace.org/2016/12/21/world/bandcamp-ceo-says-he-sees-music-art-not-commodity.
• “Bandcamp (About).” Bandcamp, bandcamp.com/about.
• Aguilar, Mario, and Mario Aguilar. “Meet the Prodigy Who Made 11 Bandcamp Albums That Eventually Got Him a Record Deal.” Gizmodo, Gizmodo.com, 23 Sept. 2016, gizmodo.com/meet-the-prodigy-who-made-11-bandcamp-albums-that-event-1739708308.