Online music platform Bandcamp has announced that it will continue its ‘Bandcamp Friday’ initiative for the rest of 2021.

The online music platform and distribution service launched the initiative back in March 2020 to aid those musicians whose livelihoods have been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, with Bandcamp waiving their revenue share to ensure that as close to 100 per cent of the profits as possible from fan purchases, downloads and merch goes directly to artists and labels.

CEO Ethan Diamond said that the 13 Bandcamp Fridays so far have “paid artists and labels $56million (£40million), helping cover rents, mortgages, groceries, medications, and much more. If you’re among the nearly 800,000 fans who participated, thank you.” He went on to confirm that they’ll continue until December this year at the earliest.

He added: “If you’ve started to feel guilty about buying music on any day other than Bandcamp Friday, here’s something to keep in mind: on Bandcamp Fridays, an average of 93 per cent of your money reaches the artist/label (after payment processor fees).

“When you make a purchase on any other day of the month (as 2.5million of you have since March, buying an additional $190million (£136.5millon) worth of music and merch) an average of 82 per cent reaches the artist/label. Every day is a good day to directly support artists on Bandcamp!”

Bandcamp said at the end of 2020 that their initiative helped raise over $40million (£28.7million) for artists and labels that year. The next Bandcamp Friday will take place at the end of this week on August 6.