Indie music platform Bandcamp has laid off nearly half of its staff, with former employees reporting the news via social media. These firings come after Epic Games bought the company in 2022. Just to turn around and resell it barely a year later.
This is becoming an alarming trend given last month, Epic let go of 830 employees or 16% of its staff. “For a while now, we’ve been spending way more money than we earn,” explained CEO Tim Sweeney about the firings. At the same time, the company revealed that it would be selling Bandcamp to the California-based music licensing company Songtradr.
Along with the fact that 250 people more would be leaving Epic either via offers with Songtradr or Epic’s divesture from its SuperAwesome ad business. Any employees who didn’t receive offers were notified yesterday that they are eligible for severance.
Songtradr has also confirmed the news in an email to The Verge. Stating that 50% of Bandcamp’s employees have been extended offers to join their company. They also reiterated a previous statement that it is committed to keeping the Bandcamp experience the same.
And while all of this does verify that the sale of Bandcamp to Songtradr has gone through. There is still no word on whether the new owners will voluntarily recognize Bandcamp’s union, which employees won earlier this year. Even though there is pressure from both employees and the platform’s community to do so.
It’s also hard to look at mass layoffs like this for recently unionized companies and not think that something else is afoot. But for legal reasons, we aren’t accusing anyone of busting, just giving a hard side-eye.
Songtradr may still decide to recognize the union without a fight.
