Do I Have A Case Against Unitedmasters? Would It Be Worth It Pursuing It Legally?

Location: King County, Washington.

Hello, I’ve recently decided to look into a situation I found myself in back in 2023.

Trying to keep it short, I started making and releasing music back in 7th grade (2017) and around 9th grade (2019) I began distributing my music through UnitedMasters (UM). By mid 2020 I starting paying for their SELECT membership which allowed me certain perks like releasing multiple songs at a time and choosing the date they’d be released, but the biggest incentive for the membership was owning 100% of my royalties. I had released 70+ songs (mainly singles, couple EPs, and 1 album.), gained streams in the triple digits (I vividly remember surpassing 600k worldwide), and generated earnings (I have a photo of the dashboard where it clearly shows “ARTIST NAME Earnings: $495.95. Jul 2020-Jan 2021”. I also have bank statements from my mothers bank account of PayPal payments being sent under my name throughout my entire use of UM)

Now for the issue, some time around late 2022 and very early 2023 I had lost the ability to access my account. I ran into a “login glitch” which would either cause an error to pop up or literally nothing would happen. This would happen every time and eventually i was running into a 3rd outcome, being treated as a new user.

During this time i was still being charged for the $59.99 annual membership and was only able to stop the charge by canceling the card that was connected to my account. Then on 7/29/23 i received the first email stating they weren’t able to charge my card and that my “SELECT MEMBERSHIP IS IN JEOPARDY”.

I continued to receive these type of emails until i finally responded to one that was sent on 8/13/23. I had emailed them on 8/14/23 explaining my issue and demanded to either be assisted in gaining access to my account OR to cancel the membership, refund me for the charges made during my lockout period, and to allow me to withdraw my remaining earnings.

Instead of receiving a response, I continued to receive emails stating they are STILL trying to charge the $59.99 up until 9/12/23 when the membership was canceled since they never received the payment.

I was willing to just let this go if i was able to get into my account to retrieve my property and earnings plus the refund. But now it’s no longer just about a “login glitch” since between August 2023 to November 2025 (the last date that I had seen my music on Spotify and Youtube) my music was still live and continuing to generate royalties without any way for me to claim them. Then sometime after November 2025 they had deleted all 70+ songs from whatever platform they could. UM’s own terms of services state that “after a membership lapses, data is held for one year before deletion.” So since I tried to regain access to my account and reached out for help to resolve my lockout back in 2023, does that mean the deletion of my music is a breach of their own policy? And what about keeping my music live for almost 2 years after the membership was canceled?

I also have still been receiving emails from UM throughout all this time, also I was still receiving monthly performance emails from Spotify For Artists throughout all of this. It shows that people were still listening to my music. Even around November 2025 i still had a few listeners and the occasional Super Listeners, which shows that there are fans of my music who are still streaming my music numerous times in a single month (I think it’s like 15-20 plays for someone to be labeled a Super Listener).

I’m sorry this was so long but I wanted to make sure you got the full picture of the situation UM has put me in. I just want to know if it’s even worth it to pursue this legally.

EDIT: UM is based in New York. I turned 18 at the start of 2023 so i was a minor for almost the whole time i used UM.

2nd EDIT: If the answer is yes, what could I go after them for? Is there any laws protecting musicians growth and possible earnings? Because I was on a steady growth, In 2020 I had 4k by the end of year on Spotify alone, and for 2021 I had 24k streams by the end of the year on Spotify alone. This is from my “Spotify For Artists Wrap”. Should I try fighting for the most or would it be better to settle for a smaller amount?