Jack Abraham
Music Consultant, Educator & Mentor
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A tool for musicians, songwriters and music business students.
Curious how it all fits together? Understand CISAC, reciprocal agreements, and why you usually only need to join one PRO at home.
Need to know if you're ready to join a PRO? Start here — answer a few questions and get a tailored recommendation, fee and application link.
Want to look up a specific country or society? Browse and search all 107 composer PROs and 6 performer organisations.
Weighing up two or more societies — like the four US PROs? Line them up side by side on fees, eligibility and timelines.
Don't know what a PRO is? Start here — plain-English definitions of PRO, mechanical rights, neighbouring rights and more.
Answer a few questions to get a tailored recommendation. Nothing you enter is saved or sent anywhere — it all runs in your browser.
This is asked separately from writing, because performer royalties (paid by "neighbouring rights" organisations like PPL or SoundExchange) are collected differently from songwriter royalties — even if you write and perform your own material.
PROs and neighbouring-rights organisations represent people who write music or perform on recordings/live. Based on your answers, neither applies to you right now — so there's nothing to sign up for yet.
This includes a live gig, a track on Spotify/Apple Music, radio/TV play, or a commercial recording.
Pick up to 5 societies to compare side by side.
Add PROs above to compare their fees, eligibility and timelines.
Key terms every songwriter and music business student runs into.
The global network behind the acronyms. Scroll down through each idea.
This distinction underpins almost everything a PRO does. A single song usually generates two separate copyrights: the composition (lyrics/melody, owned by writers & publishers, collected by composer PROs like PRS/ASCAP/GEMA) and the sound recording or "master" (the specific captured performance, owned by the performer/label, collected by neighbouring-rights bodies like PPL/SoundExchange/GVL). Streaming, radio and broadcast use can trigger royalties from both sides — they are not paid by the same organisation.
Most national PROs are members of CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers), a Paris-headquartered umbrella body with over 225 member societies in around 120 countries. CISAC itself doesn't collect royalties — it sets common standards and keeps a registry of who represents which writers.
PROs sign bilateral deals with each other so that when your song is played abroad, the local PRO collects the royalty and forwards it to your home PRO, which pays you. This is why, in most countries, you only need to join one PRO where you live — it should already be collecting your overseas royalties through its network of reciprocal deals.
In the United States you must choose exactly one of ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or GMR for a given work's performance rights — they compete with each other rather than being complementary. Elsewhere (UK, EU, most of the world) there's typically one dominant national society per country, so the "which one do I choose" question mostly doesn't arise outside the US.
Reproducing a song (pressing a CD/vinyl, or a stream/download reproduction) often triggers a separate "mechanical" royalty, sometimes collected by the same society (e.g. GEMA, Buma/Stemra) and sometimes by a distinct body (e.g. the Harry Fox Agency / MLC in the US, CMRRA in Canada). Check whether your local PRO bundles mechanical rights or not.
Royalties are typically split into a "writer's share" and a "publisher's share." If you're unsigned and self-publish, you're usually entitled to both shares — but you may need to register as both a writer and a publisher (sometimes via a separate application) with some societies to collect the full amount.