As Senator Kevin Murray's legal action to make record labels adopt more rigid royalty reporting practices continue, Warners has announced they will voluntarily putting in place "accounting practice changes that will put "teeth" into our commitment to reporting accurate royalties".
Murray's legal ramblings followed complaints from artists that record companies used complicated account reporting to confuse them so that labels could under-pay royalties without anyone noticing. The senator called on the US Senate to force labels to introduce simpler clearer reporting practices.
Although, as you'd expect, the legal route is proving time consuming and difficult, the PR around the campaign has forced a number of record labels to act off their own backs. Universal and BMG announced they would reform their royalty reporting at the end of last year, and now Warners are promising to do the same – even providing auditors access to all manufacturing documents so they can assess how the label has calculated profit – and promising to pay any underpaid royalties that auditors spot with interest.
All eyes are now on Sony and EMI who are yet to make any moves on the reporting issue – it also remains to be seen if Murray is satisfied with the label's self-imposed commitments.