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In my opinion, after you've made a solid and good faith effort to collect on money due to you, especially if that effort has been ongoing for a long time, you are ethically entitled to recoup the amount you are owed by using the content; however,
(I am not a lawyer but it is my understanding that) From a legal standpoint, you would not be permitted to offset your losses by using the content as that would constitute copyright infringement. It is likely that you would end up owing a huge judgement if the owner of the works (even though you believe they owe you money) chose to enforce their copyrights.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice and it could be entirely incorrect. I wouldn't take the risk personally.
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