According to notices filed in recent days in the Federal Register, SoundExchange is auditing a number of digital broadcasters including CBS owned Last.fm, iHeartRadio and Live365. Under rules set by the Copyright Royalty Board, SoundExchange can choose to to audit any digital music service; and has a history of selecting a few each year for year.
While this year's choices could be seen as routine, they are likely not made randomly. SoundExchange is required to pay for the audit, unless in independent CPA determines that they were underpaid by at least 10%, in which case the cost is paid by the offending service.
"As with anything of this nature, each audit can take on a life of its own, as there can be different issues raised by the auditor in the case of different services, or there can no issues at all… But the publication of these notices reminds services to be careful with their royalty record-keeping, as those records could be subject to review should your company be selected in the next set of audits," writes Attorney David Oxenford,
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