The company sued Apple in 2020, saying that the terms of its App Store - which takes payment commissions of up to 30 percent - were unfair. For Halloween that year, the Latin pop star J Balvin gave a campy concert dressed as a green-haired Frankenstein’s monster, backed by dancers in costume as ghosts and zombie Cyclopes.Įpic has also taken center stage in one of the most high-profile debates in current tech policy. In April 2020, the rapper Travis Scott made what was widely seen as a breakthrough appearance, drawing 28 million players to his virtual performance.
“Epic and Bandcamp share a mission of building the most artist-friendly platform that enables creators to keep the majority of their hard-earned money,” the company wrote.įortnite, Epic’s flagship game, has been one of the most innovative outlets for music in video games, allowing artists to appear virtually, often in elaborately produced segments. But Epic’s statement on Wednesday indicated that it was interested in Bandcamp as a direct-to-consumer marketplace. (Last year, Spotify had $10.7 billion in revenue and lost about $276 million, according to company reports.)Įpic Games, which is based in Cary, N.C., and is privately owned, said little about its plans for music, and a company spokeswoman declined to answer further questions about the deal. Even more surprising, Bandcamp says it has been profitable since 2012. During the pandemic, Bandcamp has waived its fees once a month on “Bandcamp Fridays,” bringing the company waves of goodwill. On Bandcamp, on the other hand, artists can upload their own work and set the pricing rules for downloads of their own work - pay-what-you-wish pricing is common.
According to Bandcamp, artists collect an average of 82 percent of every sale, and the company says that since it went online in 2008, its payments to artists and labels are “closing in on $1 billion.” By comparison, last year Spotify said it had paid out $5 billion to music rights holders in 2020 alone.įor listeners, Bandcamp has also become a cherished smorgasbord, filled with obscure but wonderful music they may find nowhere else. While a small player compared to giants like Spotify, Apple or YouTube, Bandcamp has become a favorite outlet among musicians for letting them control how their music is shared and sold and giving artists the bulk of the income they receive from those transactions. In a statement, Epic said that Bandcamp “will play an important role in Epic’s vision to build out a creator marketplace ecosystem for content, technology, games, art, music and more.” The world of independent music got a jolt on Wednesday when Bandcamp, the platform that has been a haven for musicians during the pandemic, announced that it had been acquired by Epic Games, the company behind blockbuster online video games like Fortnite.
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