PRO

In-Depth Explanation

What is a PRO?

A PRO stands for Performance Rights Organization. In many countries outside the United States, they are often referred to as Collective Management Organizations (CMOs).

A PRO is a society that acts as an intermediary between the people who create music (songwriters, composers, and music publishers) and the businesses that use music in public spaces or broadcasts (radio stations, streaming platforms, restaurants, television networks).

When a business plays music publicly, copyright law dictates they must pay for that privilege. It would be impossible for a local coffee shop to track down every individual songwriter to pay them a fraction of a cent. Instead, the PRO issues a Blanket License to the coffee shop, collects an annual fee, and then distributes that money to the songwriters as Performance Royalties.

The Major PROs

Every country has its own PRO. In most countries, there is a monopoly—only one government-sanctioned PRO exists (e.g., PRS in the UK, SOCAN in Canada, APRA in Australia, SACEM in France).

The United States is unique because it operates a competitive free market with multiple PROs:

1. ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers): A non-profit organization owned and run by its members (songwriters and publishers). It is one of the two largest PROs in the US.
2. BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.): Originally created by radio broadcasters, it operates as a non-profit and is the other massive PRO in the US. You can join either ASCAP or BMI, but not both simultaneously.
3. SESAC (Society of European Stage Authors and Composers): Despite the name, it is a US-based, for-profit PRO. Unlike ASCAP and BMI, which anyone can join, SESAC is invite-only.
4. GMR (Global Music Rights): A newer, boutique, for-profit PRO founded by Irving Azoff. It is highly exclusive, representing massive hitmakers (like Drake, Bruce Springsteen, and John Lennon) to negotiate higher rates than the traditional PROs can.

(You can browse a comprehensive list of international PROs in our PRO Directory).

What a PRO Does NOT Do

This is the most common area of confusion for independent artists. A PRO is a highly specialized organization; it does one thing, and one thing only.

A PRO DOES NOT:

• Collect Mechanical Royalties from Spotify or physical sales. (That is done by The MLC or a mechanical society).
• Collect Neighboring Rights for the performance of the master recording on digital radio. (That is done by SoundExchange).
• Collect royalties from YouTube Content ID.
• Act as your publisher or aggressively pitch your music for Sync Licenses in film and TV.

A PRO only collects performance royalties for the underlying Composition.

How to Register and Collect Your Money

If you are a songwriter, joining a PRO is one of the first and most important business steps you must take.

When you join a PRO (like ASCAP or BMI), you will set up two accounts: a "Writer" account and a "Publisher" account (often called a vanity publishing company).

When you write a new song, you must log into your PRO dashboard and register the work. You tell the PRO the title of the song, who wrote it, and what the percentage splits are. From that point on, whenever the PRO's monitoring systems detect that your song was played on the radio, streamed on Spotify, or performed on a TV show, they will collect the royalty, split it 50/50, and send half to your Writer account and half to your Publisher account.