Published
Fri, May 20, 2022, 18:00
- "Fans can keep supporting artists on Android as they have, and we'll continue paying artists the same share of sales," wrote CEO Ethan Diamond in a blog post today.
Epic Games, parent company to Bandcamp, and Google have reached an agreement regarding Bandcamp's in-app payment system on Android devices.
Under the terms of the agreement, which was granted yesterday, May 19th, Bandcamp will keep its current payment system and Google won't institute a penalty. Instead, as Bandcamp CEO Ethan Diamond outlined in a blog post earlier today, the music retailer will pay ten percent of all revenue into an escrow account that will be held as collateral until a final ruling on the Epic Games and Google case in 2023.
"Fans can keep supporting artists on Android as they have, and we'll continue paying artists the same share of sales (typically within 24-48 hours, as we do today)," wrote Diamond.
Prior to the last-minute change, Google's payment policy on Android was due to update on June 1st. This would have required Bandcamp to exclusively use Google Pay Billing and therefore pay Google 30 percent of sales. Since 2015, Bandcamp has used PayPal integration on its Android app.
Earlier this month, Epic Games suffered an initial setback in court when, on May 12th, US District Judge James Donato rejected the injunction against Google, Courthouse News Service reports. But the judge also urged Google to act in good faith and delay the update until the case goes to trial next year.
Though the new agreement is good news in the short term for Bandcamp, it points to larger issues around payment structures through tech giants. Last year, Epic Games brought a similar lawsuit against Apple regarding in-app payments. That ended in a win for Apple, with a federal judge ruling that the tech giant hadn't violated antitrust laws.
Regardless of the outcome in the Epic Games and Google case, it highlights the entrenched problems of a consolidated music ecosystem. The larger issue presented by the Epic Games acquisition—not to mention Bandcamp's previous reliance on PayPal—is that it leaves independent musicians without access to the music distribution infrastructure, and at the mercy of large tech companies.
"Moving forward, we'll continue the fight to allow artist-first business models like ours on Android," wrote Diamond.
Read the latest court filing here. We'll report more on this story as it unfolds.