A number of Aussie bands alleging they’ve been ripped off by a distribution company for over tens of thousands of dollars have taken to social media to share their outrage.
This all began with blues rock group The Snowdroppers who are alleging that they’ve been ripped off thousands of dollars by a music distribution company Valleyarm Digital Content Distribution, and are sending a warning to the rest of the world via social media about the company, as FasterLouder reports.
Guitarist Pauly K explains that the band had signed to Valleyarm for iTunes distribution of their first record in 2011, the company was to collect the royalties and pass them onto the band, two years later The Snowdroppers logged onto Valleyarm’s website to discover “we had thousands of dollars in unpaid royalties.”
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He goes on to claim that after contacting Valleyarm, the distribution group said they could only pay the band in $1000.00 instalments, however this never eventuated, “The weeks went by and the money never appeared. We kept contacting them and could never get a straight answer why it hadn’t been paid. Then they started mysteriously not returning our calls or replying to our emails.
“This went on for months. Somewhat luckily for us, Cougar Jones (Drumset, Bikram Yoga) has a parent who runs a debt-collection agency and kindly agreed to look into the matter. More months passed, a million notices were served, phones rung, doors knocked, goons hired, nothing. It was taking enough of the debt collector’s time and effort that we had to start paying them.”
Fuming, The Snowdroppers informed Valleyarm in August 2014 that they’d be taking legal action against them, to which “Valleyarm mysteriously paid $2000 of the money owed – still leaving over $8600 (including interest and legal costs), and then went back to giving us the silent treatment.”
Flash-forward to this week, the band are at a fork in the road: either they continue pressing legal action against Valleyarm which they state will cost more than what they’re owed, or they simply drop the case and potentially lose their apparently owed royalties.
The Snowdroppers go on to explain why they’ve posted what they funnily call a “pithy rant on social media”, writing “there must be so many other bands out there who are signed up to similar agreements with companies like this (or indeed, this company) who might not even realise they’re getting robbed. If you’re an artist selling your music digitally, make sure you’re getting your money.”
Interestingly, Pauly K wrote the lengthy post on Monday 30 March and since then has been contacted by other bands who also make claim that Valleyarm are too ripping them off, “since writing this the other day we found out that yes, Valleyarm are doing the exact same thing to a bunch of other bands, including at least one for around $12,000.00 in royalties.”
There has been no further update for The Snowdroppers in receiving any of their held royalties from what the quartet describe as “a bunch of thieving pricks”, however, with the pressuring power of social media, the bands may very well see the money they believe they’re owed.
The Snowdroppers would like to make a public service announcement to other bands – DON’T DEAL WITH VALLEYARM UNLESS YOU…
Posted by the snowdroppers on Sunday, March 29, 2015
