Music sharing platform, Bandcamp, has recently been under fire for their alleged asking of Topshelf Records to petition against Bandcamp employee unionization efforts. Being known as platform in support of independent musicians, Topshelf released a statement against Bandcamp on Twitter detailing, “We fully support @bandcampunited and want to see the platform that espouses to champion independent music do so equally for their staff”.
Although Bandcamp is a platform heavily used by independent artists financially supporting themselves through music, Topshelf highlights the important fact that Bandcamp is still a company and a company purchased by a multi-billion dollar tech company(Epic Games), finishing the twitter thread with, “Bandcamp is a music company, It is the defacto marketplace for independent music. but it is a third party platform bought by a multi-billion dollar tech corporation which is showing why we as a music community should be critical and why its staff should be diligent… it is possible to love a thing and be critical of it”.
Bandcamp is not new to controversy and criticism surrounding their treatment of employees attempting to unionize. American Band, Deerhoof, publicly spoke out against the company in a tweet earlier this month saying, “Rather than come out in support, or acknowledge their employees’ legal rights, the top brass chose instead to hire this famous union-busting legal firm right out of the gate”. Closing off their twitter thread tagging Bandcamp co-founder, Ethan Diamond, stating, “Send a message to ethan@bandcamp.com to let management know if you are confused or disappointed in what appears to be an effort to deprive their employees of their legal right to vote and to organize, and follow @bandcampunited for updates”.
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