Raymond, whether or not you paid them may not get you off if it came down to it, although getting heat for this seems like a really unlikely scenario. If that were an adequate defense it could be used for all kinds of things. What would matter is if they represented to you that what they were doing was legal, your payments were going to cover royalties and you relied on that information. If that's the case, then you might have a claim to recover what you paid them. However, it would probably cost you more to recover than what you lost. This is part of the nature of getting scammed, speaking from bitter experience.
Not that I'm in a position to give legal advice. Yet.
