Royalty Accounting

Music Reports clients face formidable royalty accounting challenges, due in no small part to the massive scale of digital music catalogs, the fractured nature of the music rights landscape, and the complexity of the royalty rates and terms in the music industry. The company develops integrated, customized royalty accounting solutions for clients to meet these challenges, for all music right types and all music rights payees. Music Reports IT professionals and in-house music attorneys have deep expertise in coding royalty terms according to all record label, music publisher and music rights society specifications. Once royalty terms are coded, Music Reports clients simply provide the company with catalog files, music usage files and royalty deposits, in any standard format, on a periodic basis. Music Reports then reports to the music rightsholders via Web portals in an electronic format and distributes payable royalties, via high-speed check cutting and/or electronic funds transfer, as stipulated by the music rightsholders concerned. Clients are provided with Web-based royalty statement viewers, as well as payment reconciliations, so that they have complete visibility into Music Reports' processes.

Each monthly and quarterly accounting period, the company reports royalties for tens of millions of songs and recordings, to hundreds of thousands music rights owners, on billions of digital music transactions. Following each accounting, Music Reports fields the inevitable flood of calls and emails from music rightsholders with questions in respect of rendered accountings. Importantly, the company stores and safeguards all client historical royalty accounting information in redundant, co-located and disaster-proof locations. In the event of a royalty audit of a client by a music rightsholder, Music Reports provides a transparent "buffer" between the client and the auditor concerned, so that the client can continue to focus on its core business without disruption. The company is unique among royalty accounting service providers in the United States, as its financials are audited quarterly and its processes are audited annually, according to a SAS 70 Type II process audit, which is required by Sarbanes Oxley of any royalty accounting service provider to public companies.

  • Music use reported to hundreds of thousands of entitled parties annually
  • Tens of millions of dollars in royalties paid to music publishers and labels annually
  • Millions of dollars paid directly to composers and publishers for music used in major syndicated television programs