The Snowdroppers Accuse Digital Distributor Of Ripping Them Off For Thousands

30 March 2015 | 6:09 pm | Mitch Knox

"We kept contacting them and could never get a straight answer why it hadn't been paid"

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Sydney-based blues rock legends The Snowdroppers have levelled a series of accusations at the Australian arm of digital distribution firm Valleyarm, which they allege at one stage owed them about $10,000 in unpaid royalties, and has since become impossible to contact.

Airing their frustrations on Facebook this afternoon, the band, framing their message as a "public service announcement", say that Valleyarm — with whom The Snowdroppers' previous management cemented a deal in 2011 — knowingly and willfully withheld royalty payments due to the band from their music's availability on iTunes, despite at first appearing helpful and compliant.

"In 2011, with our old management, we signed with them — well, they sorted out an online contract so we could get our money license through iTunes," drummer Andy Cook told theMusic.com.au this afternoon. "Basically, they're the middleman between us and iTunes so we can get our sales… but we weren't aware of [the unpaid money] for years and years and years, and then one day we realised, and then they didn't want to give us anything."

According to Cook, with the band's change of management came the call to check the Valleyarm account, at which time the band discovered they were allegedly owed several thousands of dollars in royalties.

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"One of my old managers got in contact with me, and he said, 'Just letting you know, I checked the Valleyarm account, you guys are owed quite a bit of money,' so that's when we started the process of trying to get it back, you know, just as a band," Cook explained. 

"Then it got out of our hands, and I got him in contact with my stepdad — [debt collection]'s what he does for a job — and then it even got to the point where I said to him, 'Stop doing free work,'  so he had to start charging us, because he's doing work for us, you know? So countless and countless hours trying to get something, but yeah...

"So this letter is just something that we decided to put together ideally to stop other bands from going anywhere near them."

In the band's announcement on Facebook, guitarist Pauly K alleged, "At first, [Valleyarm] were quite easy to get a hold of, then they told us that due to PayPal policies they could only transfer $1000 per month, as we weren't a record label".

"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..."

Cook elaborates: "Us being band members, we just sort of weren't aware [of the process], but it had definitely been set up with our knowledge. Basically, they're just not doing what they are supposed to do as a company."

"[They seemed happy to] take our money, but not give us our money… take and not give," he continued. "They did give us a very little amount … and then they were going to continue to do that. We were like, 'Yeah, that's cool!' — and then that only happened once… so, they still owe us approximately, like, $7700."

To be exact, that figure is $7765.74, arising from a court judgment entered against Valleyarm in NSW Local Court in September last year. Despite a "mysterious" one-off $2000 payment apparently received by the band in August 2014, the judgment figure allegedly remains unpaid, which — counting interest and legal fees — leaves the amount owing up about the $8600 mark, taking the band's total wayward cash up past the $10,000 mark.

"Basically, they're like a ghost company; it's extremely hard to find anything about them," Cook said. "We've had the right people on the job, looking into this, but unfortunately … we're at a point now where we're trying to decide how much more time and money we want to spend on it, because we kind of can't even find them. No phone calls, addresses, nothing; they're like ghosts, basically."

As the band concluded their PSA: "There's enough money in the music industry being diverted to people who have spent their energy getting good at doing business, rather than making music."

At the time of publishing, phone and email contacts obtained for Valleyarm were no longer responsive. 

Read the full letter from Pauly K below.

 

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