Further thoughts from two laid-off Bandcamp workers

“Knowing that folks are rooting for us on the outside? That’s only made me want to fight harder.”

Bandcamp plays a crucial role in local and niche music communities of all sorts, including Madison’s. Independent artists around the world have been watching nervously as a new owner, the music licensing company Songtradr, has taken over the beloved online music platform. In late September, Songtradr announced that it would be acquiring Bandcamp from gaming giant Epic Games, which itself acquired Bandcamp in 2022. In mid-October, about half of Bandcamp’s staff learned that Songtradr would not be keeping them on, creating all sorts of questions about the future of the site’s functionality, its in-house publication Bandcamp Daily, and its recently formed staff union, Bandcamp United. 

I wrote about all this in the October 27 edition of our Microtones column. While I was at it, I sent a few questions to the folks at Bandcamp United. A few days after the column ran, I received some thoughtful replies from two of Bandcamp’s laid-off, unionized staff members, senior software engineer Emma Humphries (who is a UW-Madison alum) and social media manager Atoosa Moinzadeh. I wanted to share those responses here.

By the time Moinzadeh and Humphries sent these replies, Bandcamp United had filed an Unfair Labor Practice complaint against Songtradr with the National Labor Relations Board and charged that Songtradr illegally targeted members of the union’s bargaining committee in its layoff decisions. Songtradr has claimed it’s a coincidence that it let go all eight members of the union’s bargaining committee, but 404 Media has reported that the company had previously invited the bargaining committee to a meeting with CEO Paul Wiltshire. That, plus the fact that it’s not hard for anyone with an internet connection to identify people involved in the union, casts doubt on Songtradr’s claim that it had no information about union members. Meanwhile, Bandcamp United continues to negotiate with Epic Games for severance packages, and has shared some troubling stats on the demographics of the layoffs.

Below is a brief email Q&A with Moinzadeh and Humphries on the ongoing labor fight, Bandcamp’s staffing levels, and licensing.

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Tone Madison: What if any recourse does the union have in this situation? What can people do to be supportive of the union and laid-off workers?

Atoosa Moinzadeh: We are currently looking into all of our options at this point. We did just file an unfair labor practice with the NLRB over the targeting of the bargaining committee. [Editor’s note: These replies were received on October 31.] That being said, One of the biggest ways folks have supported us in the past few weeks—at least in my view—is making sure that the conversation hasn’t stopped. People are rallying around our plight as workers and piecing together what’s happened and having honest conversations about the implications this could have on the music industry as a whole. I’m seeing artists supporting each other and talking about what some of the alternatives for independent musicians could look like. It’s important that people are still talking because this isn’t over: we’re still bargaining and we’re still fighting to make sure BCU is recognized by Songtradr. OPEIU [Office and Professional Employees International Union, to which Bandcamp United belongs] and Tech1010 [an OPEIU local focused on organizing tech workers] have been incredibly supportive at this time, fighting with us—but knowing that folks are rooting for us on the outside? That’s only made me want to fight harder.

Emma Humphries: When you see some of your favorite artists—artists you learned about from Bandcamp, or heard on stations like WORT and went looking for on Bandcamp—supporting us, and calling out how messed up this situation is, you realize you’re not alone. So yeah, artist and label support for us is critical for morale.

Tone Madison: Given what you know of the day-to-day challenges of running the site pre-Songtradr sale/layoffs, and the fact that staff were locked out of crucial systems after the sale was announced, what challenges do you think the remaining staff will face going forward? Is that even a reasonable staffing level to keep things running?

Emma Humphries: There are engineering infrastructure projects underway which were disrupted by the lockout, and people who were responsible for finishing them were part of the layoffs, with a reduced engineering team less people are working on maintenance and features. Our support staff were locked out of their case management tools, leaving support tickets for artists and staff unanswered. This situation has presumably only worsened as the vast majority of our support team was laid off, with seemingly no back-up plan from Songtradr. 

Atoosa Moinzadeh: Bandcamp was already understaffed pre-acquisition, even as staff members expressed to management that they wanted more personnel and resources for their respective teams. I can only imagine how difficult it is for my colleagues to be operating at essentially 50% right now. 

Tone Madison: Do you know if, pre-Songtradr or even pre-Epic, Bandcamp ever considered integrating any kind of licensing features? Most of the online music-licensing services I’ve seen (Songtradr included) seem pretty cheesy and about as far from the Bandcamp vibe as one could get, but I’m curious to hear what you think of that. Like is there any way those things could ever fit together, or is it just too dissonant?

Emma Humphries: Bandcampers, because so many of us come from an indie music background, have the context of what artists want in terms of fair deals for licensing their work. 

Artists deserve to get paid for their hard work, but any licensing intermediary has to be mindful. 

You can’t expect an artist to hand over carte-blanche permission to license to whomever, especially in an age where reactionaries try to appropriate culture for their own ends. 

Think of all the times artists have told Trump that his campaign didn’t have permission to use their music at rallies.

Companies acting as intermediaries, who have to keep increasing their valuation to go public or meet shareholder expectations if public, have an incentive to ask artists to give up the right to say no to a license, which makes it more likely that an artist could find their music in an ad for a politician, a product, or a cause they are morally opposed to.