Making record labels increasingly irrelevant, the website Bandcamp as released some impressive new sales numbers. Sites like Bandcamp are letting artists sell direct to fans, and is allowing fans to buy the music in the format they want and knowing that the money is going to the band and not the pockets of a record exec. As Bandcamp says, “we’ve noticed something awesome: every day, fans are buying music that they specifically set out to get for free.” Here are some of their recent stats:

“In the month of December alone, Bandcamp artists raked in more than one million dollars in music and merch sales.

22% of those sales happened because of Bandcamp, driven by things like tags, the home page, recommendations, and search.

40% of the time, fans pay more than the asking price for name-your-price albums.

53% of all purchases are made by fans located outside the U.S.”

The press release goes on the describe how many time people searching for torrents of albums end up landing on Bandcamp’s page and decide that paying for the album is easier than “sifting through torrent sites.” Cheaper than free