Inside Royalty Audits with Keith Bernstein
What really happens inside a music royalty audit? In this episode of the Artist Rights Institute Podcast,ARI Director Chris Castle sits down with royalty auditor and industry veteran Keith Bernstein for a deep dive into one of the least understood — but most important — areas of the music business.
Keith walks through how royalty audits actually work, what artists and songwriters routinely miss in their agreements, and why audit rights remain one of the few meaningful accountability tools available to creators in the modern streaming economy. The conversation explores how legacy accounting practices evolved into today’s digital royalty systems, why opaque reporting structures continue to create disputes, and how streaming has changed the economics of audits themselves.
We also discuss the practical realities facing artists considering an audit:
The episode also examines broader structural issues in the modern music business, including black-box royalties, DSP reporting opacity, metadata failures, and the increasing complexity of digital accounting chains involving labels, publishers, distributors, collection societies, and platforms.
Keith offers practical advice for artists, managers, lawyers, and business managers navigating royalty disputes in an era where billions of micro-transactions flow through systems few creators fully understand.
Topics include:
Whether you are an artist, songwriter, manager, attorney, or simply interested in how money actually moves through the music industry, this episode offers an unusually candid look behind the curtain.
Presented by the Artist Rights Institute.
#ArtistRights #MusicBusiness #RoyaltyAudits #Streaming #MusicIndustry #Songwriters #Publishing #DSPs #AI #Copyright #MechanicalRoyalties #Royalties #ArtistRightsInstitute
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