At the start of March Epic Games announced that it was acquiring music marketplace Bandcamp. Now, the game maker is reportedly trying to prevent Google from removing the Bandcamp Android app from the Play Store.
Much like the Apple vs. Epic Games saga, Google has taken issue with the fact that Bandcamp is not making use of its payment systems for in-app payments.
“Since 2015, artists and labels have used Bandcamp’s Android app to sell music and merchandise directly to their fans, and we have used our own billing system to process payments, consistent with Google’s guidelines which specifically exempted digital music from incurring a revenue share. However, Google is now modifying its rules to require Bandcamp (and other apps like it) to exclusively use Google Play Billing for payments for digital goods and services, and pay a revenue share to Google,” Bandcamp chief executive officer and co-founder, Ethan Diamond said in a blog post.
While Google did allow payments for “digital content that may be consumed outside of the app itself” on alternate systems, that was changed in September 2021, but that deadline was since extended to come into effect from 1st June 2022.
Should Bandcamp be forced to make use of Google’s in-app payments it says it will have to either pass the fees it incurs on to Android users or run that side of its business at a loss. The platform could pass the fees on to artists but it is opposed to doing that. Further to this, Diamond said that artist’s payment would incredibly delayed as a result as well.
So, Epic Games filed an injunction to stall this change of policy on Bandcamp’s behalf which you can find here.
“We know that many people use Bandcamp’s Android app to listen to their music purchases, and we are committed to making sure that option remains available. With today’s filing, we hope to ensure fans can also continue to buy music and merchandise through the Android app, and that as much of their support as possible reaches the artist as quickly as possible,” concluded Diamond.
When Epic Games and Apple met in court last year, both parties lost with Epic Games being found of knowingly breaching its contract with Apple, while Apple was told to address the fact that it’s in-app purchase policy was anticompetitive.
This time, however, Epic Games’ Bandcamp hasn’t breached contract with Google (at least as far as we’re aware) and given a judge has previously said forcing developers to use one payment solution is anticompetitive, perhaps Epic Games is in with a shot here.
That is pure speculation on our part and we will have to see how this matter unfolds ahead of Google’s 1st June deadline.
