#Thursday tool - Bandcamp

Music Service Profile: Bandcamp

Name: Bandcamp, Inc.

Synopsis: 

Bandcamp is an Internet music company founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker. Artists and labels upload music to Bandcamp and control how they sell it, setting their own prices, offering users the option to pay more, and selling merchandise.

Users can download their purchases or stream their music on the Bandcamp application or website only once or, by preserving the purchase voucher, unlimited times. They can also send purchased music as a gift, view lyrics, and save individual songs or albums to a wish list. Uploading music to Bandcamp is free. The company takes a 15% commission on sales made from their website, which drops to 10% after an artist's sales surpass US$5,000, plus payment processing fees.

Downloads are offered in lossy formats MP3 (320k or V0), AAC and Ogg Vorbis, and in lossless formats FLAC, ALAC, WAV and AIFF. In addition to digital downloads, artists may offer to sell their music on physical media such as CD or vinyl.

Bandcamp's website offers users access to an artist's page, with information on the artist, social media links, merchandising links and listing their available music. Artists can change the look of their page and customize its features. In 2010, the site enabled embedded/shared links in other social media sites

Industry: Music streaming, music purchasing

Pricing  and  product:  Free uploads; 15% commission on sales which drops to 10% after an artist’s sales surpass US$5,000, plus payment processing fees

Founders: Ethan Diamond, Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt, Neil Tucker

Key people: Ethan Diamond, Shawn Grunberger

Date launched:  September 16, 2008

Ownership: Privately  held

Key competitors: CD Baby, iTunes store, Juno records, Beatport Website: www.bandcamp.com