Hot on the heels of its subscriptions option for artists, d2c site Bandcamp is now setting its sights on indie labels, with new features designed to help them make better use of the platform too.
Costing $20 a month for up to 15 artists or $50 a month for as many as they like, Bandcamp for Labels provides unified accounting and stats to a label across all their acts; a single place to fulfil merchandise orders; and a Pro account for every artist on that label, with features including private streaming and ad-free video hosting.
Among the labels already using the new feature: Sub Pop, Ninja Tune, Daptone, Epitaph and Future Classic. “We’ve always had only artist-level accounts, but it wasn’t because Bandcamp doesn’t believe in supporting labels. It was just a resources and time issue until now,” CEO Ethan Diamond told Music Ally ahead of the launch.
“We’re not talking about going after the major labels at all though. We will remain focused on independents. And in talking to those labels and showing them the new features, one said ‘oh, we thought of you guys as a competitor’. Which is understandable feedback given that we focused on artist accounts, but it was never our intent.”
In fact, Diamond said a lot of indie labels have been using Bandcamp already – for example, running the stores for some of their artists – even though it wasn’t optimised for them with unified analytics and fulfilment.
But will Bandcamp now move to bring its two new features – subscriptions and label accounts – together, and compete directly with Drip.fm to help indies run their own branded subscription services? Not yet. “We’re launching with artist subscriptions, and we’ll see how that goes,” said Diamond.
• Bandcamp’s Ethan Diamond: ‘Fans want to support the artists they love’
• What can Spotify learn from Bandcamp’s new artist subscriptions?
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