New independent artists might think royalties are something only “big” artists should worry about. But royalties are foundational to building and keeping a sustainable music career. Unlike one-time performance fees or merchandise sales, royalties from a single song can generate revenue for years. And the bigger your catalog gets, the more revenue you can make.

Royalties don’t just come from streaming platforms, they’re earned whenever your work is broadcasted or performed publicly. But to collect royalties, your songs must be registered with a Performing Rights Organization, or PRO, like ASCAP, BMI or SESAC.

PROs are essentially the middlemen between music creators and the businesses that use their music publicly. When your song is played on the radio, performed live, played in a restaurant or used on TV, a performance royalty is generated. 

Tracking every use of your music and collecting payments from thousands of businesses would be nearly impossible for most artists to do on their own. That is where a PRO comes in.

After writing and releasing a song, you register it with a PRO. This tells the organization who owns the composition and who should be paid when the song is performed publicly.

PROs use reporting systems, broadcast monitoring technology, venue reports, streaming data, and other methods to determine when and where your songs are performed. Once the PRO identifies how often a song was performed, it calculates the royalty owed and distributes payments to the songwriter and publisher based on ownership shares.

It's important to remember that PROs collect performance royalties for the composition (the songwriting), not royalties from the master recording. That means if you wrote the song, a PRO helps you collect songwriter and publisher performance royalties. Other royalty types, such as mechanical royalties, master recording royalties, and sync income, are collected through different organizations and agreements.

If you’re an independent artist, registering your music to a PRO should be a top priority. Many artists wait until they start gaining traction before joining a PRO. By then, they may have already missed out on money. 

Performance royalties add up over time and can bring huge profits. If you write or co-write any song, joining a PRO helps ensure your contribution is registered and tracked so you can get the royalties you're entitled to. The earlier artists join a PRO, the easier they can build a catalog and manage royalty streams later.

Joining a PRO creates an official record of your songwriting ownership and helps ensure your songs are properly documented within the music industry ecosystem. Even if your audience is small today, registering your work early creates a potentially lucrative portfolio that can grow your career. 

Joining a PRO is one of the most important systems an independent songwriter can put in place to protect their work and collect the income their music generates. Do you agree? Reply below!

If you’re a vocalist, instrumentalist or engineer/producer looking for a recording studio, find and book one on StudioBook.io! Make an account, book a recording studio near you, and show up to record.

Do you own a recording studio? Make some extra money by renting it out on StudioBook.io! List your services, equipment and hourly rate, get booked, get paid per session.

Want to collaborate with StudioBook on Instagram? Post a video of your studio session, add “Inspired by @StudioBook.io” in the caption and add us as a collaborator!

Free weekly AI engineering sessions taught by real instructors. Not for beginners. Every Wednesday at 5 PM CT. See upcoming sessions. Browse Free Sessions