Severe issues, must take legal action
I became a “Performing PRO” member of VIRPP in January 2024. My first release via said music distributor took place on the 23rd of February 2024. Within the first weeks everything went smooth: The platform was/is stable and functional, the support in most cases responded within 48 hours and actually helped to solve problems. But later on massive problems arose which were not tackled at all, even after several weeks with the support continuously stating that all issues would be solved promptly. I list the most important ones below:
1.) One of my tracks was not solely released under my respective artist profile (I have 3 at the time being) but also under my real name. Of course I never requested this and it’s also a breach of the data protection policy / GDPR.
2.) One of my EDM songs was released as a mixture of my original audio file and another one including classical music. It sounds unbelievable but actually happened. The support asked me to send the respective files again from an external source, so it seems they even don’t have my already uploaded master tracks in their system anymore.
3.) After more than 4 months with roughly 190k streams (about 160k from Spotify) my “Wallet” still indicates “€ 0”. I asked Spotify if they see any artificial streaming activity (e.g. based on promotion services I used that turned out to be not legit) regarding my artist profile and they denied after having double checked it (not all “advisors” in their support chat were willing to make such check but one of them did).
4.) While having signed up, VIRPP didn’t ask to accept any ToS (Terms of Servcie) which is mandatory in the EU. I later recognized that their “Terms & Conditions” on the website’s bottom only link to their “Privacy Policy”, meaning at the time being there are no valid ToS available. Furthermore there’s also no imprint with a geographical address, which breaches the “Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000” (Article 5). I still found their address (Netherlands) via internet. I’m writing this on the 27th of June 2024, so maybe when you read this said issue already has been solved.
Since VIRPP’s support seems to have stopped the correspondence with me and has not solved any of said points over several weeks, I see no other option than taking legal action. If you are in a similar situation you can search for “Aviciized” on YouTube and contact me via email. Maybe I can act as some kind of witness for your own case.
Kind regards,
B.H.
27. kesäkuuta 2024
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