The name-your-price music and merch distribution platform will being revenue sharing with the artists on its site.
Bandcamp is being pretty fair about the whole thing, taking 15% of each transaction, dropping to 10% once an artist's all-time sales exceed $5,000 USD. Revenue sharing will go into effect in August. Their blog provides a detailed explanation and justification of how it will all work.
Having to begin paying for something that's been free is never an easy pill to swallow. It's unrealistic, however, to think that Bandcamp or any other service could continue to offer artists help without taking in some money. Furthermore, having a little more cash will increase the ability of Bandcamp to make improvements to their platform.
As this situation with Bandcamp shows, more and more independent artists should expect to share their profits when using digital distribution services. For example, RouteNote offers yearly subscriptions for its premium and takes 10% of royalties for what is referred to as their “free service." TuneCore has an upfront flat fee. The focus for artists should not be on finding a free means of digital distribution and promotion, but finding one that's the best value for them.
Bandcamp certainly has a lot of up sides, so it's probably not a good idea to write it off because they take a cut of your revenue.
