A new ruling in the ongoing antitrust litigation between Apple and Epic Games is a "stinging" defeat for Apple, reports The New York Times (free account required). About a year ago Epic accused Apple of not living up to the 2001 court ruling forcing it to allow apps to accept alternative payment methods in its App Store. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers agrees, saying "Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this court’s injunction," calling out the company for deception and deliberately trying to circumvent the ruling. Epic calls this a "wonderful day for everybody." And while Apple will appeal, saying it "strongly disagree(s) with the decision," the judge is unhappy enough about its behavior to refer the case to the DA for a criminal contempt investigation:

In response, she said Apple could no longer take commissions from sales outside the App Store. She also restricted the company from writing rules that would prevent developers from creating buttons or links to pay outside the store and said it could not create messages to discourage users from making purchases. In addition, Judge Gonzalez Rogers asked the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California to investigate the company for criminal contempt.

The ruling — a major victory for Epic and a stinging defeat for Apple — has the potential to change the app economy by increasing the money that developers collect while reducing the fees that flow to Apple. That strikes at one of Apple’s major businesses, with its App Store long the most prominent destination for people to download mobile games, productivity tools and other programs.