Music Composers, Register With a Performing Rights Organization

photo by woodleywonderworks

We’re moving right along in our series on making money with production music libraries.  Now that you have produced your music for picture tracks and registered your music copyrights, the next step is to register your tracks with your performing rights organization.  Why is this step important?  It’s how you get paid.  This installment will show you how it works.

If you’re new to this article series, this is where we’re at:

1. Introduction / What are production music libraries?
2. Producing tracks that sell
3. Copyrighting your music
4. Registering with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO)
5. Submitting your songs to production music libraries
6. Leveraging your music placements to gain future music for picture work

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What Does a Performing Rights Organization Do?

The function of a performing rights organization, or PRO, is to track, collect, and distribute performance royalties to music composers.  When your song is played on television, radio, at a restaurant, public event, or even music on hold for telephone systems, it generates performance royalties.

The broadcasting company, restaurant, or company who uses your music pays blanket license fees to the PROs.  The PRO’s then distribute these funds as royalties to the composers and publishers of the music.

For television productions, a cue-sheet is filed by the producer of the television show.  The cue sheet lists who the composer and publisher are for every music track in the program.  This is how royalties are correctly distributed to the appropriate parties.

Which Performing Rights Organization Should You Join?

The three major performing rights organizations in the United States are BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC.  Here is a complete list of all performing rights organizations around the world.

A composer can only be a member of one performing rights organization.  It’s worth taking the time to read up on each of your options because you can only make this decision once.  That said, there isn’t a clear favorite or one that pays out more royalties than the others - although this is a point of widespread debate.

Since SESAC is much harder to be accepted to, the decision is most often between BMI and ASCAP.  Generally speaking, each are similar in the way they function.  Both are free to join as a composer.  There are minor differences in the scheduling of royalty payments, which may have an impact on your decision.  Both websites offer a tremendous amount of information and FAQ’s covering all the ins and outs.

How Do I Register My Music?

Each PRO has their own web-based system for managing your music catalog.  However the main points you need to know about are the same.

Registering a song to your catalog of works involves defining the title, length, names of collaborating composers (one or several), name of publishing company (if any) and other minor details about the work.

For each song, you will also define the percentage shares of royalty distribution.  Each song holds 200% royalty shares.  100% is considered the writer’s share.  100% goes to the publisher of the song.  If there is no publisher, then the writer(s) receive the complete 200% share of royalty earnings.

Receiving and reading your royalty statements and earnings will be covered in an upcoming article in this series.  For now, you should focus on producing lots of great and useful music and read up on the options available to you regarding your performing rights organization.

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• Make Money with Production Music Libraries
• Everything You Need to Know about Production Music Libraries
• Leverage Music for Picture Placements
• Copyright Your Music for Picture Compositions
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