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The music industry has undergone a seismic transformation over the past decade. Streaming platforms, social media, short-form video, fitness apps, global DSP proliferation, and new licensing models have multiplied revenue streams at a pace that legacy royalty systems were never designed to handle, and it shows.
Despite enormous advances in distribution and monetisation, many rights holders and music companies are still relying on reporting infrastructures built for a different era: an era of physical albums, limited exploitation, and predictable accounting cycles. Today’s digital-first environment is anything but predictable.
Modern rights reporting requires precision, scalability, and real-time data integrity. Yet much of the industry is still trying to match 21st-century complexity with 20th-century tools.
What we’re seeing across the industry is not usually intentional underpayment, it’s systemic underperformance. Usage is exploding, metadata is incomplete, rights change hands more frequently, and new platforms introduce new reporting formats almost monthly. In this environment, errors are not the exception; they are the norm.
In a world without routine royalty audits, it becomes increasingly easy for revenue to slip through the cracks, whether through unmatched usage from UGC platforms due to legacy system limits, outdated royalty engines unable to calculate today’s contract structures, or reporting pipelines that break silently during distributor or platform transitions. These issues aren’t hypothetical; they’re the natural byproduct of a rapidly evolving ecosystem relying on systems that haven’t evolved with it.
Historically, the industry viewed royalty audits as something triggered by suspicion, something you do when you believe there’s a problem.But today, the problem isn’t bad behaviour; it’s systemic complexity.
Technology is evolving faster than reporting systems, contracts, and data pipelines can keep up.
That means: even honest, well-resourced companies are missing usagerights holders often don’t know where the gaps areplatforms are juggling inconsistent metadata and market-specific ruleserrors compound quietly over timeA regular royalty audit is no longer an adversarial move, it’s responsible governance.
Just as financial audits ensure accuracy in corporate accounting, royalty audits ensure integrity in royalty distribution. They validate systems, expose blind spots, and help rebuild trust across the value chain.
Performing Rights Organisations (PROs) and Collective Management Organisations (CMOs) represent thousands of smaller rights owners and publishers, many of whom rely entirely on these organisations to safeguard their income. These entities carry the responsibility of navigating an increasingly complex licensing environment on behalf of creators who may not have the resources to conduct audits themselves.
Similarly, major labels hold a parallel responsibility toward the independent labels and smaller catalogues they distribute globally. These distributed partners depend on major-label infrastructure to process usage at scale, manage multi-territory data, interpret diverse DSP reporting structures, and identify discrepancies that smaller teams simply cannot uncover alone. Routine audit exercises therefore serve not only as internal controls but as a vital protective mechanism for the partners who rely on them.
Whether through collective management or global distribution partnerships, regular audits ensure that the systems handling vast and complex data flows remain accurate and that every rights owner, regardless of size, receives the royalties they are contractually owed.
At Connor Consulting, we’re seeing a clear pattern: companies that embrace routine royalty audits experience fewer disputes, better internal controls, and more reliable financial planning. Artists and rights holders gain transparency and confidence. And the industry as a whole becomes more accountable.
The music landscape is evolving at high speed, our compliance practices must evolve with it.
If your organisation is introducing new revenue streams, migrating systems, or simply trying to modernise its reporting, now is the time to build royalty audits into your regular oversight framework; not as a reaction, but as a standard practice.
