“My gut tells me that this isn’t a systematic scheme to withhold royalties. It’s more of an accounting issue that’s blown up,” Gilbert said. “It sounded pretty damning and pretty heavy-handed, but in my experience, I think it’s something less dramatic.”

“It’s a bit over the top,” said Tavern, who now lectures on the music industry at the University of New Haven. “It can probably be easily explained by bureaucracy, or incompetence,” or the sheer volume of payments processed by a music firm as large as UMG, he said.

Oh, the record company execs think this is a simple misunderstanding, and definitely doesn’t represent them ripping people off. You have to believe them!