Bandcamp dodges Google’s bullet (for now), but its going to cost them

At least for now, Bandcamp can continue to use its existing low fee payment system on Android devices under an court endorsed agreement with Google.

After Epic Games acquired Bandcamp in March of this year, the pair requested a court injunction to stop Google from charging higher transaction fees on its Android app or kicking the indie music marketplace off the app store altogether. Epic is locked in its own app fee battled with Google, as well.

“Fans can keep supporting artists on Android as they have,” Bandcamp founder and CEO Ehan Diamond wrote in a blog post Friday, “and we’ll continue paying artists the same share of sales (typically within 24-48 hours, as we do today.”

But Bandcamp’s deal with Google is not permanant and comes with a major cavaet.

Bandcamp is now required to place 10% of the revenue generated from digital sales on all Android devices in escrow until Epic and Bandcamp’s ongoing cases against Google are resolved. Diamond says that Bandcamp will bear that cost instead of passing it along to fans or taking it from artists.

“Moving forward, we’ll continue the fight to allow artist-first business models like ours on Android,” wrote Diamond.

You can read the full court filing here.

No more Bandcamp Fridays?

In other Bandcamp news. the company appears to have suspended its popular Bandcamp Friday program which saw it wave its own fees on the first Friday of every month to help artists earn more. More on the topics here.

Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.