What is a PRO (performing rights organisation)?

A performing rights organisation (PRO) is a society that licenses the public performance of musical works, collects the licence fees, and pays them to the songwriters, composers and publishers who own those works. It deals with the song (the composition), not the recording.

What it does

BMI, one of the US PROs, describes the job plainly in its BMI 101 sheet: it issues licences to businesses and organisations that use music, collects the fees and distributes them as performance royalties. A public performance, in BMI's list, includes radio, TV networks, venues, sports arenas, restaurants, bars, and interactive and non-interactive streaming services. BMI says this is the only royalty it pays, and it pays quarterly.

ASCAP explains the timing from the payout side: it pays on a cash basis, using current money to pay members for prior performances. That last point is why your first cheque arrives months after the gig or the broadcast.

Writer share and publisher share

PRO royalties split into a writer share and a publisher share. ASCAP notes on its membership page that a writer who has not assigned their publishing rights to anyone can take a publisher membership too, which lets them collect the publisher share of performance royalties. Self-published writers who skip this step can leave that share uncollected.

Who the PROs are

• India: the Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS), which licenses musical works and the literary works (lyrics) that go with them. It was first registered as a copyright society in 1996, de-registered in 2013, and later re-registered under the Copyright Act, 1957, as S.S. Rana & Co. sets out.
• US: ASCAP and BMI, among others. BMI says it was founded in 1939 and represents over 22.4 million works by more than 1.4 million songwriters, composers and publishers.
• Everywhere: CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, founded in 1926, links over 225 member societies in more than 110 countries representing more than 5 million creators. Its 2025 collections report put member collections at a record €13.97 billion for 2024, with music €12.59 billion, or 90% of the total.

How to use one

You join, get an account and an IPI number, then register each work with the co-writers, their PROs, the publisher and the splits, as BMI's sheet lists. Unregistered works do not get paid when they are performed.

What we think

The PRO is the oldest part of the royalty stack and the one independent artists most often ignore, because distributors handle the recording side and nobody prompts you about the song. Our view: if you write your own songs and they get any airplay, venue play or streams, registering with your local society is the cheapest money you will leave on the table by not doing it. The global network is the real value: register once at home and, through societies like those in CISAC, your performances abroad have a route back to you. Do the registration the week a song comes out, with splits agreed in writing, not when the first statement looks thin.