The music streaming platform Bandcamp waived revenue shares for artists on its platforms on March 20th, allowing their performers to receive 100 percent of the revenue generated from paid purchases on the site for 24 hours. Bandcamp will be continuing these waivers during the first Fridays of the next three months, on May 1st, June 5th and July 3rd.
According to Pitchfork, the event last month led to the largest sales day in Bandcamp’s history, with purchases reaching up to $4.3 million in support of the artists and their labels. This fundraiser was launched to support performers who have been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has delayed many tours and music releases.
“To keep supporting musicians during the Covid-19 pandemic, we are waiving our revenue share on all sales this Friday, May 1, from midnight to midnight PDT. Let’s come together as a community to put money directly into artists’ pockets,” Bandcamp wrote in a Tweet.
The platform offered a vinyl-pressing service last April, which saw the debut of Christian Scott Tunde Adjuah’s Ancestral Recall, Jim Guthrie’s Below (Original Soundtrack), Juliette Jade’s Constellation, and Mesarthim’s Ghost Condensate. They also launched fundraiser in support of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) back in 2017.
Bandcamp was founded in 2007 with the goal of having labels and artists directly upload their music to the consumer, allowing them to control how they sell their products and allowing them to set their own price. Prominent independent record labels such as Sub Pop, Fat Wreck Chords, Relapse Records and Epitaph Records have launched pages on the service.
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