Epic Games, Who’s Behind Fortnite, Buys Bandcamp

However as streaming has grow to be the dominant format for music, artists have begun complaining, loudly, that they don’t seem to be receiving their fair proportion of the bounty. In response to business estimates, Spotify pays document labels, music publishers and different rights holders about one-third of a cent for each click on of a music; what portion of that cash makes its means right into a musician’s pocket is set by their offers with these labels and publishers.

On Bandcamp, alternatively, artists can add their very own work and set the pricing guidelines for downloads of their very own work — pay-what-you-wish pricing is frequent. Through the pandemic, Bandcamp has waived its charges as soon as a month on “Bandcamp Fridays,” bringing the corporate waves of goodwill. Much more stunning, Bandcamp says it has been worthwhile since 2012. (Final yr, Spotify had $10.7 billion in income and misplaced about $276 million, in line with firm studies.)

Epic Video games, which is predicated in Cary, N.C., and is privately owned, mentioned little about its plans for music, and an organization spokeswoman declined to reply additional questions concerning the deal. However Epic’s assertion on Wednesday indicated that it was fascinated about Bandcamp as a direct-to-consumer market. “Epic and Bandcamp share a mission of constructing probably the most artist-friendly platform that permits creators to maintain the vast majority of their hard-earned cash,” the corporate wrote.

Fortnite, Epic’s flagship sport, has been one of the progressive shops for music in video video games, permitting artists to seem just about, usually in elaborately produced segments. In April 2020, the rapper Travis Scott made what was broadly seen as a breakthrough look, drawing 28 million gamers to his digital efficiency. For Halloween that yr, the Latin pop star J Balvin gave a campy live performance dressed as a green-haired Frankenstein’s monster, backed by dancers in costume as ghosts and zombie Cyclopes.

Epic has additionally taken heart stage in one of the high-profile debates in present tech coverage. The corporate sued Apple in 2020, saying that the phrases of its App Retailer — which takes fee commissions of as much as 30 p.c — had been unfair. Epic additionally fought the public-relations battle round that lawsuit with slick, meme-ready content material like “Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite,” a parody of Apple’s well-known “1984” TV advert that launched its Mac laptop as a joyful disrupter of grey tech monopolies.