Before I get into a discussion of music streaming, I’d like to make sure you know that some of your favorite musicians may have music available for streaming, download or physical purchase on Bandcamp — and this Friday, May 1 is their next “Bandcamp Friday” where they give 100% of proceeds to the artists. (This includes my music, and also my new audiobook, but more on that later.)
By the time I sold my CD distribution company in 2002, it was clear that the music business world had been upended by the internet and had already become more complicated. My desire to move on was also motivated by wanting to get back to more of my own playing and teaching, and enjoying our family band before our kids were grown up.
The music industry hasn’t really come down to earth yet from its turn-of-the-century upheaval. In 1999, Napster taught everyone how to pirate digital music and share it globally for free. Copyright infringement lawsuits brought Napster down, but within ten years, CD sales dropped 80%, and kept dropping as new developments took over — first downloads, then streaming, which is how most music is heard nowadays (apart from live events, of course, which have grown).
Unfortunately, a trend toward deregulation since the 1980s opened up an increasing number of loopholes allowing the big companies to gobble each other up and to exploit musicians and musical products, incentivizing greed. (The father of modern capitalism, 18th-century philosopher/economist Adam Smith warned that capitalism would only work properly if regulated by the government to ensure fairness.) AI has only accelerated the unfairness.
One attempt to help was introduced in Congress in 2018 — the Music Modernization Act, which took effect in 2021. Among other things, it created an independent Mechanical Licensing Collective to collect and distribute streaming royalties, particularly unclaimed royalties the big companies were hanging onto.
The situation is still very asymmetrical, and other laws have been proposed along the way. One is the Living Wages for Musicians Act, which was introduced in 2024 and 2025. The text of this bill includes an interesting explanation of why it is needed: “The Living Wage for Musicians Act would create a new streaming royalty to compensate artists and musicians more fairly when their music plays on streaming services. Currently, musicians make tiny fractions of a penny per stream, while streaming has grown to represent 84% of recorded music industry revenue in the U.S.” (You can track this bill’s progress at this link.)
A number of startups have sought to allow music streaming and sales that are more artist-friendly than big companies like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, and YouTube Music. These ubiquitous companies have huge catalogs but pay musicians fractions of a penny per stream.
Bandcamp started in 2008, and by 2010 was allowing musicians a place to offer their music online. They still operate basically the same way, as far as listeners and musicians are concerned, though the company was bought out twice about 3-4 years ago, followed in 2023 by some labor disputes.
Bandcamp and other new businesses such as Qobuz, Tidal, and Subvert give flexibility and much better returns to musicians. Subvert is just getting going as a cooperative not subject to corporate buyout. Tidal has a large catalog, and Qobuz a growing one; all have high quality audio, though Bandcamp is the only one to offer free streaming.
The Bandcamp model is interesting because you can generally listen to all the music for free at least three times before being asked to pay for it. At that point, a minimum amount is requested for download of the track or whole album, though fans are allowed to pay more if they wish. It’s been found that fans are often more generous than not, which is very helpful to the artists.
What you purchase on Bandcamp can be a digital download or a physical CD to be sent to you (many artists now offer vinyl LPs as well); it can even be band merch. Artists take home about 80% of what comes in, which is astronomically more than they get from the big companies.
During Covid, Bandcamp started offering “Bandcamp Fridays” where they give musicians 100% of sales on the first Friday of each month. This has been so successful that they have kept it up. The next one is this Friday, May 1 — a nice day to purchase from your favorite artists!
Although I have my music out there on various streaming platforms, the big companies pay next to nothing For example, on my recent statement of internet digital sales, I was paid anywhere from $0.0008 to $0.002 per stream.
You never know exactly which musicians you’ll find on Bandcamp but it’s well worth a look. One of my interests is in Scottish and Cape Breton music, and in this genre, for example, I can find music by Breabach, Session A9, Neil Pearlman, Howie and Dougie Macdonald, Buddy and Natalie MacMaster, and Jerry Holland, for starters.
My own albums are on Bandcamp as well — Boston Hospitality, On the Edge, American Scottish, HST — and the site allows for that sale of other items as well, such as band merch, or in our case, a tunebook. By placing our book of 150 original tunes on the site, we were easily able to include audio for all the tunes as well. In fact, when people buy a physical book from us, whether online or in person, we give them a code to use on Bandcamp for access to the audio.
My most recent foray into Bandcamp happened this week and was something totally different! After a bit of struggling with formats and other site requirements, I managed to make available the new audiobook of my novel Franck’s Wild Ride. It features four readers, kind of like a radio play. One puzzle I had to solve, though, was Bandcamp’s policy of allowing three free streams before requiring a purchase. With an audiobook, this amounts to giving it away for free, since people only need to stream each chapter once!
I figured out a way to make the audiobook available without free streaming but did offer a free sample chapter. If you like, you can listen to it below.
Franck’s Wild Ride is available on Bandcamp for a limited time; see below for other ways to get the book, ebook or audiobook. If you’re a paid subscriber to this Substack, you’re welcome to a promo code to get the audiobook for free; just contact me.
The use of Bandcamp by myself and many others illustrates how online music has started to serve musicians and not just cozy up to the top dogs of the industry. Don’t forget to look for your favorite musicians on Bandcamp and buy something from them (on a Bandcamp Friday if you can)! Also check out Tidal, Qobuz and Subvert. And consider contacting your rep about the Living Wages for Musicians Act.
If you’re interested in my music and the audiobook (and of course you are, right?) here are some links:
— My author site provides info about how to get my books, ebooks and the audiobook.
— The audiobook is here on Bandcamp but is also available on several audiobook retailers (listed here), and many libraries. Within a month it will be offered by about 45 audiobook retailers.
— Here’s a free sample chapter from the audiobook (I discovered that when entering the link, Substack simply replaced it with an audio player!) —
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.