Songtradr Acquires Bandcamp From Epic Games

Epic Games has sold Bandcamp to Songtradr, an online music licensing marketplace. News of the sale arrives as the Fortnite developer also announced plans to eliminate 16% of its workforce — around 830 jobs — and to spin off its SuperAwesome services division, according to a memo on Epic Games’ website.

“We’ve been spending way more money than we earn…We’re cutting costs without breaking development or our core lines of businesses so we can continue to focus on our ambitious plans,” explained Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in the memo.

Epic Games acquired the independent music platform for an undisclosed sum in March 2022. Though the purchase initially shocked the music business, several music executives explained to Billboard right after the sale that the motive behind buying Bandcamp might be to improve Epic’s relations with musicians or ease synch licensing. According to Epic Games at the time of the sale, “Bandcamp will play an important role in Epic’s vision to build out a creator marketplace ecosystem for content, technology, games, art, music and more.”

In the company’s latest memo, it continued to stress its desire to build itself into a wide-reaching “ecosystem for creators” but added that it needed to reach profitability.

In the past few years, Songtradr has been active in acquiring new businesses to expand its reach. In March 2023, it purchased B2B music company 7digital for a reported $23.4 million. It also recently acquired AI metadata and music search platform MusicCube in 2022, Massive Music and Song Zu in 2021, and Big Sync Music in 2019. Other companies in its expanding portfolio include Tunefind and Pretzel; it also invested $1 million in music credits database Jaxsta.

Bandcamp’s new owner says it will continue to operate the platform as a marketplace and music community with an artist-first revenue share, while the acquisition will enable it to expand its capabilities to support the artist community. In addition, Songtradr will now offer all Bandcamp artists the ability to have their music licensed to all forms of media, including content creators, game and app developers, and brands.

In a press release announcing the acquisition, Songtradr added that Epic Games is “exploring ways” to allow Bandcamp artists to opt-in to have their music licensed for use in Epic’s gaming and metaverse ecosystem via a partnership with Songtradr. Epic will continue to collaborate with Bandcamp on Fortnite Radio and “is investing in Songtradr to support Bandcamp’s successful integration into” the company, according to the Songtradr release.

“The acquisition of Bandcamp will help Songtradr continue to grow its suite of services for artists,” said Songtradr CEO Paul Wiltshire in a statement. “I’m a passionate musician myself, and artistry and creativity have always been at the heart of Songtradr. Bandcamp will join a team of music industry veterans and artists who have deep expertise in music licensing, composition, rights management, and distribution.”

“Songtradr shares Epic and Bandcamp’s values around ensuring artists are fairly compensated for their work,” added Epic Games vp/GM, store Steve Allison. “Bringing Bandcamp to Songtradr will make it easier for independent artists to connect with creators and developers looking to license their music and enable Epic to focus on its core metaverse, games, and tools efforts.”