The Pack Smart Group has secured the ability to report the physical record sales made by its clients through Bandcamp to the Official Charts Company for the first time.
- READ MORE: The NME 100 of 2026 – see the full list
As reported by Music Week, the move by the e-commerce and fulfilment specialist has addressed a quirk in the chart reporting system. Previously, Bandcamp sales were only counted towards chart rankings in the UK if the buyer also purchased an album digitally.
Now, however, all sales from The Pack Smart Group’s clients can be reported to the OCC, with the change said to be significant for independent artists operating in specialist genres like jazz, blues, and metal, whose chart spots often come down to relatively small margins, sales-wise.
“For years, artists selling physical formats through Bandcamp have known that a large proportion of those sales were effectively invisible when it came to the UK charts,” The Pack Smart Group’s business development director Seánna Holland says.
“That disconnect has been frustrating for artists and their teams, because the fans were there and the purchases were real, but they weren’t always reflected in the charts,” she continues.
“Being able to report those sales feels like a really positive step for the independent sector and it ensures that when fans support an artist directly, it genuinely counts.”
It comes after Bandcamp officially banned AI music from its platform earlier this year. Back in January, the site announced that it was struck by “the sheer quantity of human creativity and passion that artists express on Bandcamp every single day.”
It went on to say that the fact that it is “home to such a vibrant community of real people making incredible music is something we want to protect and maintain”.
As a result, Bandcamp has enforced an outright ban on music made with AI, stating that music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted on Bandcamp.
It also said that any use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles is “strictly prohibited in accordance with our existing policies prohibiting impersonation and intellectual property infringement.”
Bandcamp added: “If you encounter music or audio that appears to be made entirely or with heavy reliance on generative AI, please use our reporting tools to flag the content for review by our team. We reserve the right to remove any music on suspicion of being AI-generated.”
