Archived copy. This is Payout Policy, Version 1.0 — Effective 20 October 2026, exactly as Kavi published it. This page is never edited. SHA-256 of the source text: 9313cd645714ac785df5bce0fdb0f22f8ec079abe6921dc956e98c547c0b1d0b. Current version: kavi.audio/legal/payout-policy. All versions: kavi.audio/legal/policies.json.

Payout Policy

Kavi Media, Inc.
Version 1.0 — Effective 20 October 2026
Published at kavi.audio/legal/payout-policy

1. About this Policy

1.1 This Policy is one of the Kavi Creator Policies. It explains the practical steps for getting paid by Kavi Media, Inc., a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Alpharetta, Georgia, USA (mailing address: 169 Madison Ave STE 30314, New York, NY 10016, USA) ("Kavi"): tax-form and bank-detail onboarding, the conditions for payment, Kavi's payout provider and how payments are sent, Royalty Statements, fraud review and holds, exchange rates and fees, tax withholding and tax documents, and how to update your payout details, tax forms and residence.

1.2 This Policy describes operations only. Your payment deadline, payment thresholds, maximum hold period, currency of obligation, audit rights and every royalty rate and revenue share are set by your signed agreement. This Policy summarizes some of them for convenience, but it cannot change them or make them worse for you. If anything here differs from your signed agreement, your signed agreement applies.

1.3 In this Policy, "your signed agreement" means your Creator Master Agreement, Music Master Agreement or Audiobook Master Agreement (each a "Master"), its Schedules, Rate Card, exhibits and joinders, any India Addendum or Canada Rider, and any other signed document with Kavi. Other capitalized terms have the meanings given in your Master.

2. Who this Policy applies to

2.1 This Policy applies to everyone Kavi pays under a Master: creators, artists and licensors, and each co-host, co-owner or other payee Kavi pays directly. It also applies, for the parts that are relevant, to royalty nominees and estate representatives.

2.2 It does not apply to short-form content, which is unpaid. Commissions under Kavi's affiliate program, if you join it, are tracked and paid under that program's own published terms (kavi.audio/legal/affiliate-program-terms) and are separate from royalties.

3. Summary of your payment terms

Your signed agreement sets these terms. In summary:

4. Getting set up to be paid

4.1 Step 1: Portal account and Policy Acknowledgement. Open your Kavi Creator Portal ("Portal") account and acknowledge the Creator Policies.

4.2 Step 2: Sign your agreement. Sign your Master and any rider through DocuSeal. If you are resident in India, you sign your Master, the India Addendum, every Schedule and every other document that licenses, assigns or consents to rights by Aadhaar-based or other e-KYC-based eSign, or a digital signature certificate, which Kavi arranges at its cost (through Leegality). Kavi pays any Indian stamp duty.

4.3 Step 3: Tax form. Every payee gives Kavi their own tax form, whatever their country, only through the secure Portal form, never by email. Kavi collects tax forms, and verifies taxpayer identification numbers ("TINs"), through a third-party tax-form provider (at launch, TaxBandits, operated by SPAN Enterprises LLC): (a) US persons (including US citizens and residents living in India or Canada): Form W-9. Kavi's tax-form provider checks the name and TIN on it with the IRS (TIN matching), and the match must succeed; (b) non-US individuals: Form W-8BEN; non-US entities: Form W-8BEN-E; (c) India residents: include your PAN as your foreign tax identification number and complete the US–India treaty claim for copyright royalties; also give your GST status (your GSTIN and Letter of Undertaking details if registered, or a declaration that you are not registered); (d) Canada residents: include the US–Canada treaty claim and your foreign tax identification number; also give your GST/HST status. Where applicable US tax law requires a different form for a particular payment or payee, including Form 8233, Form W-8ECI or Form W-8IMY, Kavi will request and accept that form instead of, or in addition to, the forms above. The applicable tax law and the payee's facts control over this list. Kavi asks for an updated form when information changes or a form expires. You must also tell Kavi, through the Portal, within 30 days after any change that makes your form incorrect, and give a new form.

4.4 Step 4: Bank details. Give the bank details Kavi's payout provider needs through the secure Portal form, never by email. The Portal sends them directly to Wise, which holds them. Kavi does not keep your bank account details; it keeps only the reference Wise gives your payout account and its status. For payees resident in India, the rupee payout is credited by Wise's Indian partner bank. The account must be in your own legal name or, where you have directed payment to a company under section 5.3, in that company's name. It must be one your payout provider supports for your declared residence and tax status. For payees resident in India it must be an Indian bank account (India Addendum Section 14.1(c)). A minor's account may be one held strictly for the minor (Minor / Guardian Rider Section 6.6).

4.5 Step 5: Sanctions screening. Kavi screens payees against applicable sanctions lists at onboarding and before paying, as US law requires.

4.6 Conditions for payment. Kavi releases a payment to you only once you have: (a) given a valid tax form under section 4.3 (Form W-9 with a successful IRS TIN match, or Form W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E with your foreign tax identification number, or any other form section 4.3 describes); (b) given bank details for an account in your own legal name (or, for a payment direction under section 5.3, the company's name); and (c) kept them up to date, including by telling Kavi within 30 days after any change that makes your tax form incorrect. Until these conditions are met, your royalties keep accruing and your balance is held. It is not forfeited, rolls over and earns no interest, and it is paid in the next payment run after the conditions are met. Late-payment interest under your Master does not accrue while a balance is held because your own tax form or bank details are missing or incorrect. For payees resident in India, the 6-month long-stop in section 3 applies only once the conditions are met.

4.7 Kavi never asks by email. Kavi will never ask you for tax identification numbers, identity documents or bank details by email, direct message or phone. Kavi never asks for, or stores, your Aadhaar number.

5. Payout provider and how payments are sent

5.1 Kavi pays every payee, whether resident in the United States, Canada or India, through its payout provider. At launch, Kavi's payout provider is Wise, through Kavi's Wise Business account. Payees resident in the United States are paid in US dollars, payees resident in Canada in Canadian dollars (or, on request, US dollars to a US-dollar bank account), and payees resident in India in Indian rupees to an Indian bank account (section 3). Kavi may change payout provider on notice, at no extra cost to you.

5.2 India payments. Kavi pays only through regulated payment providers as a business sender, and states on each payment the remittance purpose code, among those its payout provider supports, that best describes copyright royalties (P0901 or P0902 where supported). Wise offers no royalty purpose code for Indian rupee payouts, so while Kavi pays through Wise it uses P1101 (audio-visual and related services). Each Royalty Statement for an India payment states the purpose code used and that the payment is a copyright royalty under your Master, and on request Kavi will confirm this in a letter you can give your bank or tax adviser. On request, Kavi will give you Wise's No Objection Certificate for a payment so that you can obtain a Foreign Inward Remittance Certificate from the bank that credited it. Any fee a bank charges you for issuing that certificate is borne by you.

5.3 Paying a company. You may direct payment to a company, on notice, to the extent your signed agreement permits: under the Creator Master Agreement, a company wholly owned by the Creator; under the Music Master Agreement, a company the Artist controls; and under the Audiobook Master Agreement, a company the Licensor controls. In every case the payment direction takes effect only when the tax forms and other tax documentation the applicable Master requires (including that company's tax form) are complete, and the bank account must be in that company's name. A payment direction does not change who beneficially owns the income. Kavi needs your own tax form as beneficial owner and, where the company receives payment as your agent or nominee, the company's Form W-8IMY or other documentation US law requires (Creator Master Agreement clause 10.15(e)).

5.4 Co-hosts, co-owners and payees. Kavi pays each co-host, co-owner or payee who has signed a joinder and met the conditions for payment in section 4.6 for themselves directly, for their share, unless your Schedule records that a co-creator's share is paid through you. Kavi withholds and reports on each person's share on the basis of that person's own tax form.

5.5 Failed payments. If a payment Kavi sent on time fails (for example, because of a banking problem or incorrect payout details), Kavi will tell you and re-send it within 10 Business Days after it learns of the failure and has working payout details.

5.6 Unclaimed amounts. If Kavi cannot pay you because it has no valid tax form or payout details, or a payment fails and you do not respond, Kavi keeps the amount as owed to you and keeps trying to reach you through the Portal and by email. Only when unclaimed-property law treats the amount as abandoned will Kavi report and pay it to the relevant US state, from which you can then claim it. Kavi never keeps unclaimed amounts for itself.

6. Royalty Statements

6.1 Monthly, in the Portal. Kavi makes a Royalty Statement available in the Portal each month, no later than 30 days after the end of the month, and you can download every statement.

6.2 What each statement shows. As your Master provides for your content type, each statement shows, for each work: (a) Qualifying Streams (music) or Qualifying Minutes (shows, Readings and audiobooks) broken down by Listener Market and by Listener Country (each country shown separately) and, where recorded, by Play Location; (b) the rate applied and any Editing Reduction, and whether the royalty ceiling in your Master (for shows, Readings and audiobooks) or the music royalty ceiling (for music) applied and any percentage reduction; (c) royalties earned, and any revenue shares and how they were calculated; (d) any amounts held, and the reasons; (e) tax withheld (with the country and rate); (f) any deduction your signed agreement allows, each on a separate line (for example, under an Equipment Agreement, for payees not resident in India only; nothing is ever deducted from an India-resident payee's royalties for equipment); (g) any payment made on your instruction to a writer or author entitled to a statutory share, on a separate line; (h) streams of any replica-voice output made under an AI-Voice & Digital Replica Consent, on separate lines; (i) the fees Kavi paid to its payout provider; (j) the US-dollar amount of each payment and, for any payment in another currency, the exchange rate used and the payment date; and (k) the conversion rate used to test the payment threshold, and the amount paid or rolled over.

6.3 Why Listener Country detail. Listener Country is statement data relevant to tax sourcing, but it does not by itself determine source. For copyright-royalty payments, Kavi uses Play Location where recorded and otherwise Listener Country as the best available evidence of where the copyright is used, as your Master provides. Other payment types are characterized and sourced under the rule that applies to that payment. Listener Market (the United States or India) sets your rate; the listener's IP address or physical location does not.

6.4 Questions and objections. If you think a statement is wrong, tell Kavi in writing, with your reasons, through the Portal or by email to legal@kavi.audio. A statement becomes final and binding 18 months after it is made available unless you have objected in writing before then. That 18-month rule closes only the objection and audit route under your Master. It does not apply to fraud, deliberate concealment or amounts Kavi knew were omitted, and does not bar any claim to the extent the law that applies does not allow its limitation period to be shortened by contract.

6.5 Audit. Once in any 12-month period, on at least 30 days' written notice, you may have an independent accountant bound by confidentiality inspect Kavi's records for your statements for the previous 18 months, as your Master sets out (including who pays for the audit).

7. Fraud review and holds

7.1 Invalid Streams. Kavi excludes Invalid Streams from royalty calculations: plays that Kavi reasonably determines, using its fraud-detection systems, to be automated, bought, incentivized or manipulated, part of a stream-farming or prohibited account-sharing scheme, made by Kavi's internal or test profiles or by profiles you or a co-creator control, or otherwise not genuine listening. For music, Kavi may also review abnormal repeat patterns (for example, unusually high plays of one track by one profile in a day) and, with written reasons, exclude them. You can ask for Kavi's written reasons for any exclusion.

7.2 How a hold works. (a) If Kavi reasonably suspects that a month's royalties include Invalid Streams, it may hold only the disputed portion, for up to 90 days, while it investigates. (b) Kavi will give you written reasons within 10 Business Days after starting the hold, by email and in the Portal, and the hold appears on your Royalty Statement. (c) Within 10 Business Days after the hold ends, Kavi will either pay the held amount or tell you in writing, with reasons, that it is excluded as Invalid Streams. (d) The undisputed portion is paid on the normal schedule. (e) You may respond to Kavi's reasons at any time during the hold with any information you think is relevant, through the Portal or by email to legal@kavi.audio, and Kavi will consider it.

7.3 Other holds your signed agreement allows. Kavi may also hold amounts while the conditions for payment in section 4.6 are not met, where sanctions law requires, or, for music, where payees dispute a split (only the disputed shares, until the payees give a joint written instruction or a final decision) or where Kavi receives a claim it reasonably believes credible that a Master or Composition is not fully licensed or infringes someone's rights (only the affected Master, or the disputed share, until the claim is resolved; Music Master Agreement clause 15.4). Kavi tells you about any hold and why, unless the law prohibits it.

7.4 After payment. If Kavi finds after paying that a payment included Invalid Streams, it may use the offset remedy in your Master against future amounts. Kavi requires repayment in cash only in the circumstances your Master expressly permits (for example, under the Creator Master Agreement, only where you, a Co-Creator or someone acting for you caused or knowingly took part in the fraud or manipulation). Under the Music Master Agreement and the Audiobook Master Agreement, another co-owner's or co-author's conduct does not create your cash repayment obligation unless that person was acting for you or the agreement otherwise expressly provides.

7.5 Do not manipulate streams. Never buy streams or listeners, use bots or stream farms, offer listeners rewards for streaming, or join stream-swapping schemes. Doing so can lead to exclusion, clawback and termination as your Master provides.

8. Exchange rates and fees

8.1 Everything Kavi owes you is calculated and owed in US dollars.

8.2 If you are paid in Canadian dollars or Indian rupees, the payout provider converts the US-dollar amount at the exchange rate it applies on the payment date. That rate is the only currency cost you bear, apart from any charges your own bank makes.

8.3 Kavi pays every fee its payout provider charges for a payout, including any transfer, currency-conversion, cross-border or settlement fee. Except as set out in the next sentence, these fees are never deducted from your payment. If a payment is returned or rejected because you gave wrong or out-of-date bank details, you bear the payout provider's fee for re-sending it; Kavi deducts that fee from the re-sent payment and shows it on your statement.

8.4 Each Royalty Statement shows the US-dollar amount, the exchange rate used and the fees Kavi paid.

9. Tax withholding and tax documents

9.1 Kavi withholds tax only where the law requires it, at the treaty rate where a valid treaty claim is on file, computes withholding on the gross amount before any set-off, and does not gross up payments. Your Master explains how Kavi decides what portion is US-source income: for copyright-royalty payments, by Play Location where recorded and otherwise by Listener Country; other payment types are characterized and sourced under the rule that applies to that payment (section 6.3).

9.2 In summary, as your signed agreement provides: (a) US persons: Kavi reports royalties on Form 1099-MISC where the law requires. If your TIN is missing, or the IRS tells Kavi that your name and TIN do not match, Kavi applies US backup withholding where the law requires it; (b) India residents: Kavi withholds US tax only on the US-source portion, at the treaty rate where your Form W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E validly claims it (Kavi's current practice is 15% under Article 12 of the US–India treaty; 30% if no valid treaty claim is on file), and files Form 1042-S and gives you a copy; Kavi deducts Indian tax at source only where Indian law requires it, telling you in advance and giving you the required certificate; (c) Canada residents: Kavi's current practice is to withhold on the US-source portion at 10% (Article XII(2) of the US–Canada treaty) where your form validly claims treaty benefits, and at 0% (Article XII(3)(a)) only for a content type for which Kavi has told you in writing that the exemption applies. Kavi may change this practice by notice where the law or its determination under the Canada Rider (Section 10.3) changes. Kavi files Form 1042-S for each year it pays you US-source royalties.

9.3 If Kavi withheld too little US tax, it may recover the shortfall from later payments only as your Master allows (including the monthly limit and the written statement your Master requires). If it withheld too much, it will refund or set off the excess as your Master provides.

9.4 Kavi issues the information returns the law requires (for example, Form 1099 or Form 1042-S). You are responsible for your own income taxes and for any GST, GST/HST, QST or similar registration and filing.

10. Updating payout details, tax forms and residence

10.1 Payout details. Update your bank details only through the secure Portal form, never by email. The new account must meet section 4.4. A change applies to payments Kavi initiates after the payout provider has accepted it.

10.2 Tax forms. Update your tax form through the secure Portal form whenever your information changes or your form expires, and in any case within 30 days after any change that makes your form incorrect (section 4.6).

10.3 Moving. Tell Kavi in the Portal before you move your residence or tax residence to another country, US state, Canadian province or territory, or Indian state (under the Creator Master Agreement, at least 30 days before the move where possible). After a move: (a) you may need a new tax form and new bank details (for example, an account your payout provider supports for your new residence); (b) your payment threshold and payment currency may change to the ones for your new residence; and (c) your India Addendum or Canada Rider may be added, replaced or removed by a short written amendment, as your Master provides. A move is not a breach and does not by itself reduce any economic term.

10.4 Nominee. Name or change your royalty nominee as your Master provides. If you die, royalties are paid to your nominee or, if none, to your estate or legal representative on proof of entitlement.

11. Protecting your payments

11.1 Kavi sends payment notifications and statements only through the Portal and from kavi.audio email addresses.

11.2 If you receive a message asking you to change payout details, confirm tax information or pay a fee to release royalties, do not respond. Kavi never charges a fee to release royalties. Report it to privacy@kavi.audio.

12. Contact

• Payment questions, statement objections and hold responses: legal@kavi.audio (or through the Portal)
• Suspicious payment messages and privacy questions: privacy@kavi.audio
• Post: Kavi Media, Inc., 169 Madison Ave STE 30314, New York, NY 10016, USA

13. Changes to this Policy

13.1 Kavi changes this Policy only as the Policy Acknowledgements describe: (a) at least 14 days' notice by email to the address in your Portal account and by a notice in the Portal, with a summary of what changed; (b) shorter notice, or immediate effect, only where required by law, a court or regulator order, an app store or payment provider, or needed to deal with an urgent safety, security or fraud risk, and only to the extent that requirement or risk demands, with an explanation as soon as practicable. Shorter notice affects only when the change takes effect, and paragraph (e) applies to it in full; (c) a change in your favor (for example, a lower payment threshold), or a purely administrative change, may take effect when posted, with notice; (d) for a material change, Kavi will ask you to acknowledge this Policy again in the Portal. Until you acknowledge, the earlier version keeps applying to content under any Schedule, Release Schedule or Book Schedule signed before the change, as your Master provides, and Kavi will not hold back uploads of that content, royalties already earned, or exploitation of or payment for content already delivered. Kavi may ask you to acknowledge the new version before you sign a new Schedule; and (e) a change does not apply to royalties earned or disputes that arose before it took effect, and does not apply as a new obligation or an increased burden to content under a Schedule, Release Schedule or Book Schedule signed before the change, except to the extent applicable law requires immediate application. A court or regulator order is implemented to the extent it legally binds Kavi. An app store or payment provider requirement, or an urgent safety, security, fraud or child-safety risk, may justify only action that your signed agreement or applicable law already authorizes (for example, a mandatory takedown); it does not itself amend your signed agreement or make a new obligation in this Policy apply to earlier content or earlier royalties. Royalties already earned on removed or restricted content remain payable.

13.2 No change to this Policy can reduce or change the basis of any royalty rate, Rate Card figure, revenue share or editing rate, or change the payment deadline, payment threshold, maximum hold period, currency of obligation or audit rights in your signed agreement. Those change only by a written amendment signed by you and Kavi, except a rate change (an increase, or a reduction for future streams or listening only on the notice your Master requires), a lower threshold or another change in your favor that your Master allows Kavi to make by notice.

13.3 Every past version stays available in the Portal.

14. Language

This Policy is in English, and the English text is binding. Kavi may provide a Telugu translation or summary as a courtesy; it is for information only.

15. Your signed agreement prevails

If this Policy conflicts with your signed agreement, your signed agreement prevails.