Publishing

How to Register With a PRO So Your Royalties Can Find You

By Patrick Diamitani and the Artispreneur team · 2026-10-23

The short answer

To collect performance royalties, join a performing rights organization such as ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC, then register every song you wrote with its writers and splits documented. Royalties are paid against those registrations, so an unregistered song earns money that has nowhere to go. Registration is a one time setup per song.

Every time your song is played on radio, television, a streaming service's performance side, or live in a licensed venue, it generates a performance royalty. Your performing rights organization (PRO) collects that money and pays the writers and publishers. But a PRO can only pay against what it can match: a registered writer, a registered work, and splits that agree with everyone else's registration.

Step 1: Join one PRO as a writer

A songwriter can belong to only one PRO at a time. In the United States the main options are ASCAP and BMI, which are open to join, and SESAC, which is invitation based. Choose one, complete the writer application with your legal name and tax details, and keep your membership details current whenever your address or banking changes. If you also publish your own songs, set up your publishing entity with the same PRO so the publisher's share has a home too.

Step 2: Register every work, with the splits from the session

Register the song title exactly as it will be released, including alternate titles if you have them.
List every writer with their PRO and share. Shares must total 100 percent.
Use the split sheet signed in the session as the source. Never register splits from memory.
Register before or at release, not months later when a placement reminds you.

The Academy course linked below walks the registration screens step by step, and the companion course on adding songs to your PRO covers catalogs with existing releases, which is where most independent artists discover their older songs were never registered at all.

Step 3: Treat your catalog like a ledger

Registration is not a one time event, it is a habit: every new song, registered at release, with splits that match the split sheet and every cowriter's own registration. Once a quarter, compare your PRO catalog against your released catalog and fix the gaps. That quarterly check is the core of a royalty health check, and it is the difference between royalties that find you and money sitting unclaimed under a name nobody matched.

Questions artists ask

Can I be in ASCAP and BMI at the same time?

As a writer, no. Songwriters affiliate with one PRO at a time. Your songs can still be co-written with writers in other PROs; each society pays its own writers their shares.

What about mechanical and streaming royalties?

PROs handle performance royalties. Other royalty types flow through other channels, including your distributor and, for interactive streaming mechanicals in the US, the Mechanical Licensing Collective. A complete setup registers you in each place your music earns.

Do the work

Check your royalty setup free

The free Royalty Check reviews your registrations and flags the gaps where royalties are most likely stuck, before you register another song.

Start free

Free course

Go deeper with the Academy course behind this guide. Video up top, full written lesson underneath.

Start the free lesson

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