Why Every Songwriter Needs a Performance Rights Organization

If you want to collect all the music royalties you’re owed, you need to sign up with a Performance Rights Organization (PRO).

I know, royalties can be super confusing.

So in this post, I’ll do my best to simplify what a PRO is, what kind of royalties it collects, and how to get the money owed to you.

When Do You Earn Music Royalties?

A music royalty is paid to the owner of a song.

“Owner” here can include songwriters, recording artists, and/or publishers ‒ there are several kinds of royalties paid to these different parties. 

Basically, anyone who owns all or part of the rights to a song or the recording of that song should get paid royalties. The next section covers who gets paid what type of royalty. 

So when are royalties generated and paid to the owners? 

Here are the types of places that owe you a royalty when they stream your song:

• Streaming platforms (when someone streams your song)
• Radio stations
• TV stations and video streaming platforms (when your song is in a show)
• Non-interactive online radio stations (like Pandora and Sirius XM)
• Music venues (when you or someone else performs your song live)
• Any public place that stream your music (like restaurants, bars, and coffee shops)

How Music Royalties Are Divided And Paid

Every song has two rights attached to it: the composition right and the sound recording right. 

The songwriter(s) owns the composition rights and is owed the composition (songwriting) royalties. 

If they have a publisher, the publisher acts on behalf of the songwriter.

So not only can the publisher reproduce and distribute the recording and any derivatives of it, but they will also take some (or all) of the publishing side of the composition royalty. 

The recording artist owns the master recording rights to their recording of the composition. So they’re owed the master recording royalties any time someone uses their recording of the song. 

So every time a song is streamed (see the list in the previous section), a royalty is generated for both the composition side of the song and the recording side of the song. This means the songwriter(s) and recording artist(s) are owed a portion of those royalties.

What Is a Performance Rights Organization (PRO)?

A Performance Rights Organization (PRO) collects performance royalties for songwriters and publishers. (If you’re an indie musician, you’re probably both the songwriter and publisher).

So any time your song is performed in a public place, which includes being streamed (see the list in the “When Do You Earn Music Royalties?” section), your PRO will collect a royalty for you ‒ the composition half of the royalties, not the sound recording half. 

So now the question is, which PRO should you join? Because you have a few options, and you can only sign up with one PRO.

BMI

Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) represents over 1.2 million songwriters and publishers. These artists include Taylor Swift, Eminem, Willie Nelson, and many other artists you know. As I write this, BMI represents over 18.7 million songs. 

BMI splits royalties 50/50 between the songwriter and publisher. But the way it looks is a bit different than other PROs.

They start with a percentage of 200% for each song. So 50/50 would be 100% to the songwriter, 100% to the publisher. 

Weird, I know. 

With BMI, you’re not required to have a publisher or start a publishing company like some of the other PROs. So when registering a song with BMI, you can enter 200% as the songwriter’s share and BMI will automatically pay you the publisher’s cut too. 

Before they divvy out your royalties, they will keep about 12% off the top. The other approximately 88% goes to their songwriters/publishers.

The payout threshold is $2 if you sign up for direct deposit and $250 if you get paid by check. If it’s the last quarter of the year, the payout minimum is $25 regardless.

BMI also offers its members discounts on third-party memberships, like hotels, rental cars, different kinds of insurances, and music-related services (like FanBridge and ArtistShare).

So how do you get set up with BMI?

1. Sign up here (free for songwriters ‒ signing up your publishing company costs $150-250)
2. Go to “Works Registration” under Applications
3. Click “Add New Work” and enter your song’s info

Once BMI approves the song registration, that song can start earning performance royalties. 

You can also collect royalties for your live performances by uploading your concert setlists to BMI… 

1. Go to “BMI Live” under Applications
2. Enter the venue info
3. List which of your songs you performed (that are already registered with BMI)
4. List how many times you played each song in that set

In my experience, I’ve earned about $1-2 per performance of a song. 

Also, I’ve heard BMI is better than other PROs about collecting royalties related to sync licensing placements.

In my case, after my song was on NBC, BMI collected and paid me performance royalties because my song was on national TV. And those royalties ended up being more than the sync payout.

Hence, the need to register your songs with a PRO, especially if you’re pursuing sync licensing.

ASCAP

ASCAP was the first PRO in the United States. 

They represent more than 850,000 songwriters, publishers, and composers (like Ariana Grande, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, and Kelly Clarkson) and over 16 million songs. They process more performances every year than any other PRO in the world.

Like BMI, ASCAP splits the royalties 50/50 between publisher and songwriter, and you do need to set up a publishing name to collect the publishing royalties (I believe it’s just some paperwork).

And like BMI, they pay out about 88% of their gross revenue to their members and keep the other 12%. 

You can register your songs and performances online, and ASCAP pays quarterly. The payment minimum is $1 if you enroll in direct deposit, $100 if by check. 

The biggest difference between ASCAP and BMI is that the former charges a one-time $50 application fee, whereas the latter is free. 

ASCAP offers its members discounts very similar to BMI, like deals on insurance, music expos, and music-related services. 

I’ve not used ASCAP so I can’t speak to the song registration process or performance payouts.

SOCAN (Canada only)

If you’re Canadian, SOCAN is the PRO for you. 

They represent more than 175,000 songwriters, music publishers, composers, and visual artists, and they work with more than 100 copyright collection organizations in 214 countries. 

They collect performance royalties and mechanical royalties, you just need to sign up to collect performance royalties first. 

SOCAN pays out royalties quarterly with a minimum of $0.25, and if you’re earning less than $500 per quarter, you can only get direct deposit (which most people want anyway). More than that and you’ll have the option to get paid by check.

Signing up as a songwriter is free. As a publisher, it’s a one-time $50 fee.

PRS for Music (United Kingdom only)

If you’re a UK musician, the Performing Right Society (PRS) is the PRO you have to sign up with. 

Under the PRS umbrella is the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS), which collects royalties when its members’ music is copied. 

The PRS side of the business pays its members quarterly in April, July, October, and December. The payout minimum is £30 for direct deposit into a UK account and £60 for overseas accounts. Except in October when they lower the distribution minimum to £1.

The MCPS side pays their musicians monthly with a minimum payout of £30 for direct deposit into a UK account and £60 for overseas accounts. If your royalty balance is less than these thresholds by November, they’ll pay whatever is owed to you. 

Becoming a PRS/MCPS songwriter costs a total of £200 ‒ a £100 fee for the PRS side and a £100 fee for the MCPS side.

Joining PRS/MCPS as a publisher costs a total of £800 (£400 for each side).

Two Other Organizations That Collect Performance Royalties

There are two other organizations that can collect performance royalties for you: a publishing admin company and SoundExchange (U.S. only).

Publishing Admin Company

Whether or not you’re registered with a PRO, a publishing admin company can collect performance royalties for you, even from other countries. 

Technically, your PRO collects international performance royalties, but a publishing admin company can do it faster because they can register your songs with international PROs.

Plus, a publishing admin company can collect mechanical royalties from streams or sales of your music (paid by the DSPs like Spotify and Apple Music).

In the U.S., the only company that collects and pays mechanical royalties is the Mechanical Licensing Collective set up by the U.S. government. 

So to collect your mechanical royalties, you need to either 1) register all your songs with the MLC (inconvenient and time-consuming) or 2) register your songs with a publishing admin company that partners with the MLC, like Songtrust ($100 signup fee).

There are some digital distributors that offer publishing admin services, like Tunecore and CD Baby. But I like using a standalone publishing admin company because then I’m getting those royalties from one place, regardless of what digital distributor I use. 

And you don’t give up any rights to your songs. A publishing admin company simply takes a small cut from the royalties they collect. 

SoundExchange (U.S. only)

As I said earlier, there are two sides to every recorded song: the composition and the sound recording. 

Each of these has different royalties attached to them. 

PROs collect the composition side when a song is performed.

SoundExchange collects royalties for the sound recording side when that same song is performed.

So SoundExchange collects digital performance royalties for non-interactive streams of the sound recording.

“Non-interactive” means the listener can’t choose their music like they can on Spotify or Apple Music. So a non-interactive stream would be from places like Pandora, SiriusXM, and Beats 1.

And SoundExchange is the only organization in the U.S. that collects digital performance royalties for the sound recording.

Plus, they can collect neighbouring rights royalties owed to you.

When there’s a performance of your sound recording in a country outside of the U.S., you’re owed a neighbouring rights royalty.  

And SoundExchange works with almost every neighbouring rights organization in the world.

FYI, there’s a $100 signup fee, but it’s totally worth it, considering what you could earn in royalties. 

Next Steps

Sign up with a PRO. I use and recommend BMI.

Sign up with a publishing admin company. I use and recommend Songtrust. 

Sign up with SoundExchange (U.S. only). 

Thanks to my Performance Rights Organization and other royalty collection entities, I’ve been able to collect all of my royalties — money I would have otherwise left on the table.