BMI Affiliation - What does it entail?

There are several kinds of royalties you can earn as a songwriter: mechanical, performance, and synchronization. BMI handles performance royalties, which means they'll collect money for public performances (from radio stations, venues, websites, etc) and give roughly half that money to the songwriters - the other half is their fee.

Although technically you're due money every time your song is played in public, it's not like the cover band in the corner bar drops a nickel in a box every time they play your song. So that means the performing arts agencies streamline the process - which will be to your benefit only if you have a mega-hit.

Here's how the process works in a nutshell: I have a venue with cover bands; I contact the rights agecncies (BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC) and get a license from each. I pay a few thousand dollars per year - the exact amount based on the number of seats I have, how many nights I'm open, etc - and they give me the rights to have any song in their catalog performed - it's called a "blanket" license. Now maybe my club only books Ramones cover bands... in theory, nobody else is due royalties from my club. But in practice, all the money I've paid goes into one big bucket with the royalties everyone else has paid.

So the agencies split up that bucket based on how often they think your song got performed. The easiest way to track this is through radio play - so that's pretty much what they do... they get logs from radio stations, and have a few staff people who listen to the radio all day, writing down what's played (I actually know one guy who does that!). So if your tune is a mega-hit, it probably shows up on lots of logs, and you get a big percentage of the bucket. If you have the poor fortune to only be played at venues they're not monitoring... well, you get nada, even if you're entitled to thousands of dollars. But thanks for playing.

As a result, the writers of mega-hits get overpaid on performance royalties, and everybody else gets shorted. But if you'll be selling songs, you want representation anyway - the chance of getting some money is at least there. So joining a rights agency is a good idea.

As I mentioned, there are three main agencies: two big ones (BMI and ASCAP), and one that's smaller (SESAC). The big guys have bigger resources and collect a lot more money overall - but SESAC may be better at servicing you if you're in a niche (I've heard they're better for Gospel music writers, for instance). You get to join only one. There is a contract involved. Do a little googling and you'll find songwriters very unhappy with each of them, so I'd contact all three, talk to a lot of people - maybe even an entertainment lawyer, and try to make an informed decision.

Thanks Noteboat. It seems like I need to do some more research before jumping in.

Is there anyone else out there who is a member of any of these organizations and can give some more info.

Thanks to all.