licensing international music distribution-terms
Is my overseas music distributor in breach of their licensing agreement? How do I get money owed to me?
<p>When I first started making music several years ago I used a service called Music Kickup; they're based in Helsinki, Finland and I am based in California, US. They take music I send them, put it on streaming platforms (spotify, apple music, etc.), and when I make money from people streaming me, those streaming services send the royalties to music kickup, then music kickup pays me. The whole "paying me" part is what's getting hung up here. They have not paid me since fall of 2016. You can look at <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/NFlOi.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">my payment report portal here</a>, accessed at the time of posting this. Section 4 of Music Kickup's licensing agreement says this about payments, I am considered the licensor here:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Music KickUp shall provide the Licensor with a report of the sale of
  the Licensor’s Recordings via Music KickUp Distribution Service and of
  the accrued royalties. Music KickUp shall post the report to the
  Licensor’s Music KickUp Account within a reasonable time from Music
  KickUp’s receipt of such reports from the Distributors.</p>
  
  <p>Royalties and other related income accrued from the digital
  distribution of the Licensor’s Recordings and received by Music KickUp
  from the Distributors (hereinafter referred to as “Royalties”) shall
  be credited to the Licensor’s Music KickUp Account within ninety (90)
  days from the receipt of such Royalties by Music KickUp. For avoidance
  of doubt, only Royalties actually received by Music KickUp from
  Distributors shall be credited to the Licensor’s Music KickUp Account.
  Music KickUp shall not be responsible for any delay or neglect of
  payment by Distributors or other third parties.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>You can read <a href="https://www.musickickup.com/legal" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the rest of their legal documentation here</a>. I'm also entirely certain this is not a delay on behalf of third parties. Spotify, Apple Music, have always been quick to pass my royalties on to other distributors I've used before. I've emailed Music Kickup several times and have either been told that they're fixing it and my payments "will be available soon" (they never are) or they will just flat out stop responding. According to my math they owe me about $5,000 as of today.</p>

<p>I'm fairly confident what they're doing is in breach of the licensing agreement but I have no idea where to start. What can or should I do?</p>

<h2>Initiate <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_collection" rel="nofollow noreferrer">debt collection</a></h2>

<p><strong>We don’t do specific legal advice here so I will just address the general question - someone owes me money; what can I do?</strong></p>

<p>Non payment of debt is not criminal behavior in most cases in most jurisdictions so collection is a private matter between you and your debtor.</p>

<p>There are lots of options starting from asking for your money through using a collection agency all the way to pursuing the debt through the courts.</p>
