On point 5, bandcamp doesn’t own any rights to the music on the site. The artist agreement is limited to the service of selling music, if that changes the artists can revoke their agreement.
Pretty sure there's value in owning a platform where small independent ("undiscovered") artists release their work and where listeners go to find that work. In particular, it seems likely that having the metrics and historical data could give SongTradr insight into which artists seem likely to catch on, etc.
That would be the worst move Songtradr could make here. The ability to distribute your music while maintaining the rights to it is one of the main reasons - hell, if not the main reason - artists and labels (and fans like myself) love Bandcamp. Making such a change would, to my mind, royally piss off the entire community and, in particular, the artists that make the platform as successful as it has been. I can only imagine the negative press that such a move would generate.
Move their music off it. It happens a lot. If a band's earlier Bandcamp album gets picked up by a label, they will insist on exclusive distribution, so the band will remove it from BC.
If Bandcamp were to try such a move they would destroy the value of their business overnight. Retroactively changing the agreement with your customers about their IP is the best way to permanently destroy trust.
It would be a more dramatic overnight loss of customers than Unity. It's entirely laughable, and given that laws restrict the licensing and royalties of music, it might not even be legal.
Labels can only write up contracts giving them rights because they pay for studio time (given them a financial buy-in to the creation of the music) and pay advances against royalties. Not so for indie distributors. I don't know if there are specific applicable laws, but it's absurd enough that everyone would immediately drop Bandcamp.
Music royalty rates, for physical records, radio and internet streaming, are also determined by a panel of judges: the United States Copyright Royalty Board.
Not saying they won't try, but there are enough label-represented bands on Bandcamp that they would obliterate their back catalog (along with any network effects they're enjoying) overnight.
Technically Bandcamp is a very simple payment and file host.
A small team can quickly copy how it works and get all the artists to move platform if they were to shoot themself in the head. Right now this doesn't happen because Bandcamp functions and exists and has a reputation for musicians.
Lose that, all the artists start looking for a new home and someone will make an alternative quickly.
