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Bandcamp at Centre of Dispute Between Epic Games and Google (musically.com) 35

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: If you'd told us that Bandcamp's acquisition by Epic Games would lead fairly swiftly to an argument with a tech giant, our money would have been on that giant being Apple. Nope. Epic Games is seeking a court injunction against Google, over changing rules on its Google Play Store for Android. Bandcamp CEO Ethan Diamond blogged about the dispute overnight, noting that since 2015, Bandcamp has used its own billing system to process payments made for music and merch within its Android app. "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," wrote Diamond. "If Google's policy changes stand, beginning on June 1st, we would have to either pass Google's fees on to consumers (making Android a less attractive platform for music fans), pass fees on to artists (which we would never do), permanently run our Android business at a loss, or turn off digital sales in the Android app." Diamond also said that the new policy could see a delay in payments for artists and labels, from the current 24-48 hours to "15 to 45 days after a sale," while Epic's filing notes that Google's system can't be used for purchases of physical items (merch and physical music), which would force it to use two separate payment systems anyway.
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Bandcamp at Centre of Dispute Between Epic Games and Google More

Bandcamp at Centre of Dispute Between Epic Games and Google

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  • at bandcamp..

  • This one time, at Bandcamp, Google wanted more of Epic Games' American Pie.

  • Apps (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JThundley ( 631154 ) on Friday April 29, 2022 @08:39PM (#62490762)

    So take down your app or move payments out of it completely. I don't use the app, but I'm sure you can do everything it does on the website on your phone as well.

  • Is this a call for legislation? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Friday April 29, 2022 @08:40PM (#62490764)

    I'm not sure yet but the fact is the two predominant app stores now have a pretty similar policy of forcing developers to use their billing system and taking a 15-30% cut from it. Before Google decided on this you could at least say there was an alternative but this is likly 99% of all smartphone apps a huge percentage of all digital goods between the two shops (sorry Microsoft)

    I know there are workarounds like what Netflix is doing (subscribe in app, they email you a link to their website to pay) and alternative app stores but when there is an essential dupoly i think this should raise some scrutiny.

    Frankly I wouldn't be as concerned if this was a pure conveinence and security measure and they were just passing costs along to run it but even 15% to say nothing of 30% seems excessive when processing fees are on the order of 1-3%.

    This would be a great case for competition to come in and disrupt but I don't see that on the horizon, at least anytime soon.

    • Yep, let's hope the Open App Markets Act goes through. Write your congress critters!

    • You can't compare the 1~3% processing fees of credit cards to the ~30% fees charged by Apple, Google and others because they're also in charge of maintaining the stores, hosting storage, bandwidth, etc.

      What is up for debate, however, is the 30% itself. Would 5% be enough to cover their hosting costs and debit/credit fees? Would it takes 10%? How much of a profit should they be allowed to take? For that matter, is there regulation in place for credit card fees? Shouldn't governments simply look into the matt

      • Yeah I am not so much comparing them like for like but that's pretty close to a cost comparison of an app doing the billing themselves (probably a bit more with as mentioned hosting and bandwidth) compared to having to use the stores billing.

        While there's not a specific regulation i know of in respect to the percentage of fees, there are quite a lot of regulations around them in general:https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-3240.html

        Also the large processors here do compete on business, fees bein

        • Visa/Mastercard/Amex cannot do that due to competition, as soon as on of them raised the fee to 10% then stores would straight out refuse to accept that card and move over to any of the competition. This happened in Denmark in where Danish banks charged higher fees for non-Danish cards so many stores only accept their local Dancard which have a fixed annual fee and not a transaction based fee.

          So the problem here is again that the big players like Google and Apple have managed to create a monopoly for each p

  • It's painfully obvious (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday April 29, 2022 @09:04PM (#62490808)
    That epic bought Bandcamp just so they can bring them into the lawsuit. Somehow that seems really screwed up. I don't like the fact that companies can just casually buy other companies for something as Petty as involving them in a lawsuit. These modern-day companies just have too much money to throw around. It really fucks with everybody's jobs and livelihoods in the most bizarre ways and makes modern Life extremely unstable and miserable. We're all basically living at The whims of random mega corporations in billionaires.

    I guess most people just put it out of their mind and pretend it's not happening though. That's one way to get through the day I guess

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by fazig ( 2909523 )

      I guess most people just put it out of their mind and pretend it's not happening though. That's one way to get through the day I guess

      Yup. That's what allowed Google and Apple to get where they are today.
      People's indifference and pettiness like "But Epic took muh Rocket League!"

      And while I completely agree that Epic is just another piece of shit mega corporation, sometimes the goals of a mega corporation do align with the interests of the consumer, and it's perfectly fine to support them in just those p

      • But none of this is in the interest of the consumer, that Bandcamp is charged 30% or 1% (or whatever their internal costs are) is not something that will trickle down to the consumer.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fazig ( 2909523 )
          While I agree that "passing down the savings" is usually a marketing myth. "Passing down increased cost" is quite real.

          I'll just quote the summary:

          If Google's policy changes stand, beginning on June 1st, we would have to either pass Google's fees on to consumers (making Android a less attractive platform for music fans), pass fees on to artists (which we would never do), permanently run our Android business at a loss, or turn off digital sales in the Android app.

          If true, that does sound like it will aff

          • True, but to be fair I think this is mostly a scare tactic from their side. Would they increase the price by 30% for Android users only then they would upset quite a huge part of their userbase which could give Bandcamp troubles they don't really want. I think we have to wait and see what they really do before we can say for sure if this will affect customers or not.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by fazig ( 2909523 )
              That of course is always a possibility. But that really depends on how much of a cut Bandcamp takes from artists selling their stuff through Bandcamp.

              For digital items, Bandcamp’s fee is 15%. This rate drops to 10% as soon as you reach $5,000 USD in sales (and stays there, provided you’ve made at least $5,000 in the past 12 months).

              For physical items, Bandcamp’s fee is 10%. Shipping and tax, if applicable, are not included when calculating this fee.

              Payment processor fees are separate

              • Oh I'm not at all defending the 30% cut by Google and Apple, I think it is way too high. For Steam it might be more defendable considering all the services that Steam provides and how painless it is to do refunds and so on. But both Google and Apple do nothing more than providing an install base. However I do think that the law don't give a flying about any of that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Agripa ( 139780 )

      That epic bought Bandcamp just so they can bring them into the lawsuit. Somehow that seems really screwed up. I don't like the fact that companies can just casually buy other companies for something as Petty as involving them in a lawsuit. These modern-day companies just have too much money to throw around. It really fucks with everybody's jobs and livelihoods in the most bizarre ways and makes modern Life extremely unstable and miserable. We're all basically living at The whims of random mega corporations in billionaires.

      Sometimes you have to fight evil with a different kind of evil.

  • Options. (Score:5, Informative)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Friday April 29, 2022 @10:50PM (#62490976)
    Why don't they mention the option of distributing the app outside of Google Play, where there are no rules? Unlike Apple, Google gives users the choice of using outside app markets.
    • Because while it's perfectly possible to side load apps on Android, it's a huge pain enough that your user base would drop significantly. Probably so much that the gains from having to pay a lesser fee would be less than the loss in sales.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by msauve ( 701917 )
        In other words, Google's market provides more value than it costs. So, their take is perfectly reasonable - a developer makes more money using it and paying a margin than they would if they sold directly.

        >your user base would drop significantly.

        The two markets are not mutually exclusive.
        • >The two markets are not mutually exclusive.
          True, but if they keep it on the Play Store then there are zero incentive for anyone to install the side load so it would be 100% worthless instead of just 99%. Do note that I'm not saying that Google or Bandcamp is right/wrong here, just pointing out that while side loading does exist it's basically moot for someone to make money on.

  • Civil, not tort (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 )
    This clearly is an attempt to abuse a near-monopoly the Google Play store is. It should be handled by the FTC using existing anti-monopolization laws.

  • I've never played Bandcamp, have never even SEEN it played, and probably never will. But it's always kind of interesting, in a "stand back and enjoy the brawl" sort of way, to watch the players as they do carry on. Try not to visualize all those lawyers rubbing their hands in glee.

    • Bandcamp is not a game. Its an website where musicians can post, share and monetise their music (and associated merchandise). To be honest, I'm also on the fence on this one though. On the one hand, at least on Android you can sideload or use a different app store. On the other hand, how realistic is it actually to be a major provider and remove your app from the google store.

      Mostly, I don't know why Google are doing this, tbh, since it just seems obviously contentious and pushing things to the point where

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