When Bandcamp was acquired first by Epic Games and later by Songtradr it sent a tremor through the independent-music community. Artists feared what might happen when a once-trusted, artist-friendly marketplace came under corporate ownership. Out of that uncertainty, a new name has started circulating through co-op circles, music forums, and Discord servers: Subvert.
A New Kind of Platform
Subvert isn’t another streaming app or digital storefront. It’s being built as a multi-stakeholder cooperative, meaning the people who use it artists, labels, and even fans can own it. The model comes from the world of platform cooperativism, where governance and equity are shared by those who contribute value rather than outside investors.
Leading the initiative is Austin Robey, previously the co-founder of Ampled, a cooperative crowdfunding platform for musicians, and Metalabel, a collaborative publishing project with roots in the indie tech world. Alongside him are Sean Adams, founder of Drowned in Sound and now Subvert’s lead engineer, and Izzy Ocampo (aka stud1nt), an Ableton-certified trainer and artist advocate who represents the creative community on Subvert’s board.
Why Subvert Exists
Robey says he’s been trying to answer the same question for years: “How can we create viable, collectively owned platforms?” His answer with Subvert is a marketplace where musicians can sell directly to listeners like Bandcamp but where decision-making power, profits, and policies stay in the hands of its members. In this system, artists and fans alike can buy membership shares and help steer the platform’s direction.
A Co-op, Not a Corporation
Unlike a venture-funded startup designed to sell or “exit,” Subvert is structured to stay community-controlled. Its cooperative owns a public-benefit corporation, allowing it to raise limited capital without compromising democratic governance. Each member class artists, labels, workers, and supporter’s elect’s representatives to the board. As of late 2025, Subvert reports over 5,000 members, including 1,000 labels preparing to list music on the site.
This model aims to prevent what Robey calls “platform enshittification” the gradual process by which user-friendly sites become ad-heavy, fee-laden, and extractive once profit pressures mount.
Bandcamp vs. Subvert
| Feature | Bandcamp | Subvert |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | Privately owned (Songtradr) | Multi-stakeholder co-op |
| Revenue Share | ~10–15% per sale | 0% during rollout, democratic fee model planned |
| Governance | Corporate management | Elected board of artists, labels, and supporters |
| Funding | Investor-backed | Member-funded via cooperative shares |
| Community Voice | Limited | Built into structure (one-member-one-vote) |
While Bandcamp remains beloved for its simplicity and artist-friendly history, its new ownership has introduced uncertainty about long-term priorities. Subvert seeks to fill that trust gap not by mimicking Bandcamp’s interface, but by reimagining its ownership DNA.
What Artists Can Expect
In its current alpha phase, Subvert allows early members to upload music, sell digital releases, and participate in governance discussions. The site’s roadmap includes physical-merch integration, label dashboards, and transparent accounting tools all open for member feedback. The cooperative’s changelog reads more like an open-source development diary than a corporate press feed.
The Bigger Picture
Subvert isn’t just a product; it’s a statement about who should own the infrastructure of independent music. Whether it can reach Bandcamp’s scale remains to be seen, but its founding principle is clear: if artists create the culture, they should also share in its platform’s ownership.
For independent musicians wary of corporate pivots and shifting payout rules, Subvert’s cooperative experiment offers a fresh, hopeful answer one that might just rewrite the rules of the online music economy.
The Evolution of Music Distribution: From Vinyl to Digital Dominance
To understand why platforms like Subvert matter, we must first examine the seismic shifts in how music has been distributed throughout history. The journey from physical media to digital streaming reflects not just technological advancement but profound changes in power dynamics between artists, labels, and consumers.
The Physical Era: Control Through Scarcity
For most of the 20th century, music distribution was firmly controlled by record labels who dominated production and logistics. The process was capital-intensive and gatekept: labels signed artists, invested in recordings, pressed physical copies (first vinyl records, then cassette tapes, then CDs), and shipped them to retailers. This closed system restricted many talented musicians from exposure, as aspiring artists had to hope for a record label scout to discover them at local venues.
Vinyl records, introduced commercially in 1931 by RCA Victor and perfected by Columbia Records in 1948 with the 33⅓ RPM long-playing (LP) format, became the dominant medium. The LP could hold up to 22 minutes of music per side, allowing for full albums rather than just singles. RCA responded with the 45 RPM single format in 1949, perfect for individual songs and jukebox play.
The physical distribution model created significant barriers: high production costs, limited retail space, dependency on label contracts, and geographic constraints. Record stores were thriving hubs of discovery, but collecting large libraries required substantial physical space, and wear and tear on records meant frequent replacements. Yet this scarcity also created value physical media fostered a deep connection between music and collectors, with formats like vinyl remaining cherished today.
The Digital Revolution: Napster and the Collapse of Control
The late 1990s brought a fundamental disruption. In 1999, college student Shawn Fanning created Napster, a peer-to-peer file-sharing platform that allowed free MP3 downloads and revolutionized music sharing virtually overnight. Napster quickly attracted millions of users worldwide, demonstrating both the demand for convenient digital access and exposing the flaws in the traditional music industry model.
Napster’s impact was profound and controversial. Artists and record labels filed lawsuits accusing the company of facilitating copyright infringement on a massive scale. By 2001, Napster was shut down following federal court rulings, but its legacy lived on. The platform had proven that digital distribution was not just possible but inevitable, and that the old gatekeeping model was unsustainable in the internet age.
iTunes and the Legitimization of Digital Sales
Apple’s iTunes Music Store, launched in 2003 alongside the iPod, represented the music industry’s attempt to regain control. iTunes offered legal digital downloads with DRM protection, allowing consumers to buy individual tracks rather than full albums. By 2011, Apple had sold 300 million iPods and 10 billion songs, demonstrating that consumers would pay for digital music if the experience was convenient and legal.
iTunes fundamentally changed consumption patterns. Digital downloads eliminated manufacturing, distribution, and storage costs associated with physical media. Independent artists could now distribute their music without a record label through services like CD Baby and TuneCore, which made it easy to get music onto digital stores. This democratization meant that talent and creativity could shine regardless of label affiliations.
By 2009, download services had stopped using DRM by agreement with record labels, as labels sought alternatives that would still play on Apple’s ubiquitous devices. The shift from physical to digital formats had fundamentally altered music royalties, revenue streams, and the very concept of music ownership.
Streaming: The New Monopoly
The rise of streaming services in the late 2000s and early 2010s marked yet another transformation. Rhapsody (now Napster) achieved license agreements with major labels in 2002, becoming the first interactive streaming service. But it was Spotify, launching in Sweden in 2008 with a freemium model (free ad-supported tier and paid subscription tier), that broke through globally.
Spotify’s model was fundamentally different from anything before: users paid a monthly subscription fee for access to an enormous library of music on demand, but they didn’t own anything. YouTube, launching in 2005 and licensing music from major labels by 2011, became a de facto music service despite never being designed as one. By the mid-2010s, interactive streaming had become the dominant mode of music consumption worldwide.
The democratization was real: independent artists could now reach millions of listeners without major label backing. Streaming platforms leveled the playing field in terms of distribution access. Yet the economics remained problematic. Spotify’s “streamshare” model pays artists based on their proportion of total streams, which is lucrative for major artists but often yields minimal returns for independent musicians. Many artists earn fractions of a penny per stream, making it nearly impossible to sustain a career without touring or merchandise sales.
Record labels adapted by striking deals with streaming platforms and investing in artists’ digital presence. The structure of the recording chain itself radically changed: now customers get music via digital service providers, artists can release directly on platforms like SoundCloud and Bandcamp, and “distribution only” deals allow artists to keep most revenue for themselves. Nevertheless, labels remain at the heart of the industry by continuously adapting to evolving market realities.
The Independent Movement: Taking Back Control
The 2000s and 2010s witnessed the rise of independent music distribution companies offering artist-friendly alternatives to traditional record labels. Companies like TuneCore, CD Baby, AWAL, and DistroKid empower musicians by allowing them to retain ownership of their music while reaching global audiences. Unlike major labels demanding large profit shares and creative control, these indie distributors focus on giving artists the tools to succeed on their own terms.
Bandcamp, founded in 2007 and bought by Epic Games in 2022, distinguished itself as an online platform allowing artists to independently sell music digitally or via physical media, and even sell merchandise. Bandcamp’s artist-friendly policies, including letting artists set their own prices and allowing fans to pay more if they wanted (which happens with around 40% of purchases), made it beloved among independent musicians. Bandcamp takes a flat 15% commission on sales up to $5,000, dropping to 10% thereafter, with artists receiving an average of 82% of sales revenue. The platform even launched “Bandcamp Fridays” during the COVID-19 pandemic, waiving all fees so artists received 100% of sales for 24-hour periods.
This democratization of music distribution has fundamentally reshaped the independent music landscape, allowing unsigned artists to thrive by leveraging digital tools and platforms. Yet the corporate acquisitions of artist-friendly platforms like Bandcamp first by Epic Games, then by Songtradr, with roughly half the staff laid off in the process have raised fears that these gains are fragile, subject to the whims of venture capital and corporate profit motives.
Platform Cooperativism: A Different Model for the Music Economy
Enter platform cooperativism, a movement that seeks to create a more equitable internet by adapting the infrastructure of cooperatives to the digital realm. Platform cooperatives push back against the inequitable arrangements of the deceptive “sharing economy” and monolithic digital marketplaces by ensuring that platforms are owned and democratically controlled by their members.
Within the music industry specifically, several cooperative experiments have emerged, each with its own model and challenges.
Ampled: The Pioneer That Couldn’t Sustain
Ampled, founded in 2018 by Austin Robey and others with experience at Kickstarter, Patreon, and Spotify, was built as a Patreon-like platform specifically for musicians. The cooperative was owned by artists, workers, and community members, with each member having an equal share and equal say in the business. Artists could join for free and create pages where fans could support them on a pay-what-you-wish model starting at $3 per month. Artists reaching 10 or more supporters through the platform became co-owners of the cooperative.
Ampled sought to distinguish itself through its cooperative structure, prioritizing “radical transparency, democratic governance, and broad-based user ownership”. The platform published transparent financial records, and members could participate in decision-making processes. In response to the COVID-19 crisis, Ampled waived all artist membership dues for 2020 and gave artists 100% of support.
Yet in October 2023, Ampled announced it would shut down by year’s end. The board cited “a combination of challenges primarily from burnout and a lack of resources to hire full-time workers”. Over its run, Ampled attracted 3,925 total users, approved 336 artist pages, and generated $5,542.27 in monthly artist support. Some artist-members felt left in the dark about the cooperative’s challenges and believed they could have been part of the solution.
Despite its closure, Ampled’s team emphasized that “this shouldn’t be misinterpreted as a sign that cooperative platforms can’t be successful”. The platform provided all artist-owners with certificates of ownership, made platform code publicly available, published zines, and helped artists pay rent. Austin Robey, Ampled’s co-founder, carried these hard-earned lessons directly into Subvert.
Resonate: The Streaming Cooperative
Resonate, established in 2015 by electronic producer and web engineer Peter Harris, is a music streaming cooperative where everyone involved musicians, labels, and listeners owns the business together, votes on how to run it, and shares profits. The platform uses a “Stream2Own” model, where the cost of a download is split into nine plays, paying artists per-play, with plays starting off cheap during discovery and increasing as listeners fall in love with a song.
Resonate was one of over 200 platform cooperatives active globally as of 2017, ranging from ride-sharing companies to childcare co-ops to cloud services. The cooperative’s model aims to restore agency to artists by ensuring fair payment and democratic governance.
However, Resonate has faced significant challenges in its development. Early members who signed up when the platform had interest from labels like Planet Mu have expressed disappointment with the years spent building a functioning web player and restructuring the organization. Despite these growing pains, Resonate remains operational as the first cooperatively owned worldwide streaming service, free for all artists to join and use, with user-centric payment since day one.
The Pack Music Co-operative: Local Focus, Global Ambition
Based in Perth, Australia, The Pack Music Cooperative was founded by musician and social impact advocate Melanie Bainbridge to transform the music streaming industry with a focus on local, original musicians. Bainbridge recognized that “the digital transformation of the music industry has left local artists like plankton in a sea dominated by big whales”.
The Pack’s streaming model is a radical departure from traditional prorated systems. Subscriber fees directly benefit the artists being played, creating a fairer and more transparent financial ecosystem. “We’ve turned the streaming system upside down,” Bainbridge states. “Our co-operative model ensures that the money goes to the artists our subscribers listen to, not the major label stars”.
The platform features only unsigned artists creating original, human-created music, uses artist-centric payments where every stream pays the artist you listen to fairly, ensures artists retain full rights to their work and data, connects artists with local listeners and businesses through hyper-local discovery, and employs human curation rather than black-box algorithms.
Supported by The Bunya Fund, The Pack has been collaborating with local governments in Perth, including municipalities like Fremantle, Vincent, and Subiaco, to integrate local music into public spaces and businesses as part of a “living lab” concept. The platform launched its beta version with strong community support and a commitment to First Nations data governance and cultural preservation embedded in its architecture.
SPOZZ: Blockchain and Community Ownership
SPOZZ, a Switzerland-based initiative, takes a different approach by integrating blockchain technology with cooperative principles. SPOZZ is legally and structurally community-owned, with a governance model empowering both fans and artists. Community members already hold 50% of the platform, distributed via membership NFTs, while the remaining 50% is held by founders and initial investors under Swiss Social Club regulations, ensuring SPOZZ cannot be sold or transferred to a corporation.
The platform operates as a hybrid model: a for-profit platform with 50% ownership in a non-profit association (Social Club), where artists and fans can become members, collectively influence decisions, participate in revenue sharing, and guide the platform’s evolution. SPOZZ’s economic cycle is “Listen → Share → Earn → Own”.
SPOZZ includes a marketplace where artists can publish and sell music, books, and art powered by blockchain; a streaming app available on iOS and Android for listening to music, podcasts, and audiobooks; and a live video streaming app allowing creators to perform on their personal SPOZZ Stage while simultaneously streaming to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms. Artists earn instantly from streams (one cent per stream) and direct fan payments, with transparent blockchain-secured licensing and payment systems.
In October 2025, SPOZZ announced BEATS, a feature allowing artists to sell and license original instrumental music directly to other creators with clear ownership and royalty rules. The challenge for SPOZZ, as with all cooperative platforms, is whether it can scale globally without resorting to venture capital funding.
The Path Forward: Collective Ownership as Industry Disruption
These cooperative experiments share a common thread: the belief that platforms should be accountable to users rather than shareholders. They represent a fundamental challenge to the extractive economics of corporate-controlled streaming and distribution platforms that have dominated the digital music landscape.
Subvert enters this landscape with significant advantages. Its leadership brings battle-tested experience from Ampled, understanding both the promise and pitfalls of cooperative platforms. The platform has attracted over 5,000 members before even launching publicly, including major independent labels like Warp Records, Polyvinyl, and Thrill Jockey. Its legal structure a cooperative owning a public-benefit corporation addresses funding limitations while preserving democratic governance.
Yet challenges remain formidable. Cooperative platforms face limited investment options because they reject venture capital’s demand for exits and exponential returns. Building technology infrastructure without VC funding is slow and resource constrained. Competing against platforms backed by billions in corporate capital requires not just better values but also better user experience, catalog depth, and network effects.
The broader question is whether cooperative ownership can scale to meet the needs of millions of artists and billions of listeners worldwide. Bandcamp’s success demonstrated that artist-friendly platforms could thrive at scale, but its corporate acquisition revealed the fragility of that model. Spotify’s dominance shows the power of capital-intensive growth strategies and major-label partnerships, but its poor artist compensation reveals a system fundamentally misaligned with creator interests.
Platform cooperativism offers a third way: slower growth, democratic governance, transparent economics, and genuine alignment between platform and users. Whether Subvert can make this model work at meaningful scale will determine not just its own success but the viability of artist-owned infrastructure for the entire independent music economy.
For independent musicians tired of corporate pivots, opaque algorithms, and exploitative economics, these cooperative experiments represent more than alternatives they are acts of resistance, assertions that those who create culture should also own the platforms that distribute it. The story of Subvert, and the broader platform cooperative movement, is still being written. But one thing is clear: the fight for a more equitable music economy has moved from theory to practice, from aspiration to infrastructure, from “what if” to “what now.”
About The Author
Excellent and very thoro article on modern music distribution though a co-op model. For artists, it has to go this way. The internet at first seemed to promise a level playing field, more democracy. Sadly, capitalists try to undermine this for the profits of the few, VC investors who already have a lot of money! Co-ops like Subvert aim to change this. It may be a slow grind, but so worth it. More power to them!