While we have long admired GameChops and their artists, we removed their catalog from Materia's bandcamp today, after 2 years of managing albums, licensing, etc. Last weekend, GameChops set albums to $0/pay-what-you-want. Had we been consulted, we would have said no. Here's why:

GameChops didn't ask their artists first. Also, “pay-what-you-want” is complicated when it comes to albums that require licensing — as is the Content ID situation. GameChops told us they would not be paying future royalties to artists OR composers.

We're all for giving back to the community, but that shouldn’t come at the cost of creators being paid for their work. Unlicensed commercial albums that don't benefit the people who make them go against everything we stand for.

We tried to communicate this to GameChops, and we are sorry that we couldn't reach a resolution that made everyone happy. However, we will stick to our values, which are that creators (composers AND artists) deserve to be paid for their work.