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Although I like Bandcamp, it's in a sense an even bigger rip-off than traditional labels. They get hefty shares for merely offering you a pre-designed web page

Although I like Bandcamp, it's in a sense an even bigger rip-off than traditional labels. They get hefty shares for merely offering you a pre-designed web page and hosting. The vast majority of artists on Bandcamp make no money. The problem is like with all alternative distribution channels - if you actually want to sell your music, marketing is more important than the music itself and very few people have the ability and time to do the creative work and the marketing at the same time. If nobody knows about your music, nobody will buy it. It's the same with self-publishing platforms for books. Traditional publishers have all the marketing channels already set up, so marketing is easier and more affordable to them than for startups, let alone individual artists.

pjc50 9y ago
> hefty shares 15%, or 10% if you're really successful. That means 85% of the money goes to the artist. This is better than e.g. Steam and the app stores, and far better than the old physical-media based sales.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Payment processing fees are not included, so it's more like 80%.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    That is still significantly better than any record label contract those bands could hope for.
jrimbault 9y ago
I think most (in the 95% sense) artists don't live of their art. Most of them have "real job". I think Bandcamp is fair in that it enables all those people to make their production available and get something, however small, for it; and enables other people to find art which would otherwise not be accessible. All in all I think it's a cultural plus for the world.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  There are also some bigger artists (within their genres) that use Bandcamp. Several prominent metal labels are also represented. It's just a really convenient way to make your music purchasable for download.
  - thallian 9y ago
    The day I discovered that labels like nuclearblast are putting albums up was a bad day for my bank account.
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      NB does their own thing with downloadable FLAC albums, on their own website, right?
      - thallian 9y ago
        Argh, I meant Napalm Records, sorry. Now I have to go and see what nuclearblast is doing :)
KozmoNau7 9y ago
Excuse me for being direct, but do you work for a record label? Bandcamp takes 15%/10% (depending on your yearly sales). Combined with the payment processing fees, that gives a return of around 80%, as mentioned in another reply to your post. I think that's perfectly fair, considering the hosting costs for thousands and thousands of hours of music, and their entire platform. What Bandcamp offers is a sales channel that is already configured, all you have to to is give it a theme, upload your music in a lossless format, name the songs and choose a price. Bandcamp handles the layouts, the tagging, the multiple formats, the embedded album art and the whole shopping experience. You do the art, they do the technical stuff. You're spinning a yarn that the traditional labels are necessary in order to do marketing, but with the rise of social media and the huge trust people have in word of mouth, the big in-your-face advertising campaigns of yesteryear are simply outdated. The only reason the big labels still have some kind of clout is that they own all the big radio stations. But the rise of streaming and internet radio has eroded that power. And even if what you say was true, it only holds up for mainstream pop artists, not the much more interesting indie artists out there.
- jonathanstrange 9y ago
  Excuse me for being direct, but do you work for a record label? Not at all, I'm an independent artist at Bandcamp. What I am saying is that without marketing you have 0 sales. I'm also not saying that there are no artists who can do the marketing themselves (through social media, etc., as you mention). Most artists, however, neither have the time nor the connections to do that. It's the same effect as with app stores, where also just a very small number of developers make any money. You're right that Bandcamp offers a sales channel,of course. That's essentially all that these alternative distribution channels offer. We can debate whether that's worth 15% of the sales, though. As I've said, it works for some people who are well-connected and have a natural talent for self-marketing. For most of the artists, it doesn't work.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    It has always been just a small segment of artists who could actually make money directly from their art. Most artists in history had a patron of some kind, either a rich person or royalty, or the church (or other religious institution). The sales pitch from the big labels is that they will use their connections to get you noticed, but the prerequisite is that you should already be reasonably established before they want to pick you up, or ridiculously lucky that you just caught the right person's attention at the right time. The best way to get your name out there is still to play tons of smaller shows, build a local fanbase, and get on festival lineups, either through competitions or because your fanbase pesters the promoters into booking you.

pjc50 9y ago

> hefty shares 15%, or 10% if you're really successful. That means 85% of the money goes to the artist. This is better than e.g. Steam and the app stores, and far better than the old physical-media based sales.

icebraining 9y ago
Payment processing fees are not included, so it's more like 80%.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  That is still significantly better than any record label contract those bands could hope for.

jrimbault 9y ago

I think most (in the 95% sense) artists don't live of their art. Most of them have "real job". I think Bandcamp is fair in that it enables all those people to make their production available and get something, however small, for it; and enables other people to find art which would otherwise not be accessible. All in all I think it's a cultural plus for the world.

KozmoNau7 9y ago
There are also some bigger artists (within their genres) that use Bandcamp. Several prominent metal labels are also represented. It's just a really convenient way to make your music purchasable for download.
- thallian 9y ago
  The day I discovered that labels like nuclearblast are putting albums up was a bad day for my bank account.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    NB does their own thing with downloadable FLAC albums, on their own website, right?
    - thallian 9y ago
      Argh, I meant Napalm Records, sorry. Now I have to go and see what nuclearblast is doing :)

KozmoNau7 9y ago

Excuse me for being direct, but do you work for a record label? Bandcamp takes 15%/10% (depending on your yearly sales). Combined with the payment processing fees, that gives a return of around 80%, as mentioned in another reply to your post. I think that's perfectly fair, considering the hosting costs for thousands and thousands of hours of music, and their entire platform. What Bandcamp offers is a sales channel that is already configured, all you have to to is give it a theme, upload your music in a lossless format, name the songs and choose a price. Bandcamp handles the layouts, the tagging, the multiple formats, the embedded album art and the whole shopping experience. You do the art, they do the technical stuff. You're spinning a yarn that the traditional labels are necessary in order to do marketing, but with the rise of social media and the huge trust people have in word of mouth, the big in-your-face advertising campaigns of yesteryear are simply outdated. The only reason the big labels still have some kind of clout is that they own all the big radio stations. But the rise of streaming and internet radio has eroded that power. And even if what you say was true, it only holds up for mainstream pop artists, not the much more interesting indie artists out there.

jonathanstrange 9y ago
Excuse me for being direct, but do you work for a record label? Not at all, I'm an independent artist at Bandcamp. What I am saying is that without marketing you have 0 sales. I'm also not saying that there are no artists who can do the marketing themselves (through social media, etc., as you mention). Most artists, however, neither have the time nor the connections to do that. It's the same effect as with app stores, where also just a very small number of developers make any money. You're right that Bandcamp offers a sales channel,of course. That's essentially all that these alternative distribution channels offer. We can debate whether that's worth 15% of the sales, though. As I've said, it works for some people who are well-connected and have a natural talent for self-marketing. For most of the artists, it doesn't work.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  It has always been just a small segment of artists who could actually make money directly from their art. Most artists in history had a patron of some kind, either a rich person or royalty, or the church (or other religious institution). The sales pitch from the big labels is that they will use their connections to get you noticed, but the prerequisite is that you should already be reasonably established before they want to pick you up, or ridiculously lucky that you just caught the right person's attention at the right time. The best way to get your name out there is still to play tons of smaller shows, build a local fanbase, and get on festival lineups, either through competitions or because your fanbase pesters the promoters into booking you.