Let’s face it: Audit rights are only as good as your auditor.

In this ARI Artist Financial Education session—recorded for Chris Castle’s music business and AI class at the University of Texas School of Law—we got a gem. Keith Bernstein, one of the top royalty auditors in the music business, joins Chris for a practical discussion of DSP and royalty audits. As the force behind Royalty Review Council and Crunch Digital, and its proprietary clearance tool Tempo, Keith has spent decades uncovering how royalties are reported, misreported, and contested.

Keith walks us through how audits actually work, contract limitations on audit rights, where discrepancies tend to surface, and why leverage often matters more than contract language. After decades in the field, Keith has seen where the money goes and where it doesn’t. This conversation cuts through the theory and gets into how audits really work, where the gaps are, and why audit rights only matter if you can enforce them.

Background reading: Donald S. Passman, All You Need to Know About the Music Business 11th Edition, 54–55, 70, 313, 408.