You do not need to be registered with a PRO to pitch a song, but you should be registered before a placement airs. A PRO (performing rights organization, such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or GMR in the US) collects performance royalties for the writer and publisher shares of a song. If you are not signed up when your song airs on TV, those royalties have nowhere to go.
The practical answer: join one PRO as a writer, set up a publisher entity under that PRO if you self-publish, register each song with the correct splits, and do it before you send pitches. Writer-level membership is free or low-cost, first-time setup takes about an hour, and each song takes a few minutes after that.
| Money | Who collects it | Do you need to register first? |
|---|---|---|
| Sync fee | You, your publisher or your library | No. It is a one-time fee for the license, paid by the production |
| Performance royalties (writer and publisher shares) | Your PRO | Yes, before the song airs |
| Mechanical royalties (composition streams and downloads) | The MLC, your publisher or distributor | Separate registration, not needed to pitch |
| Master digital performance (non-interactive radio) | SoundExchange | Separate registration, only if you own the master |
The production pays a sync fee once, up front. After that, every time the show airs, the broadcaster owes performance royalties, and the PRO collects and pays them out based on the cue sheet the production files. The PRO can only match that cue sheet to you if your song is registered under your name and IPI number (the identifier a PRO gives each writer and publisher). The full picture of fees versus royalties shows why the backend can end up larger than the upfront fee on a long-running show.
Performance royalties split into two halves. The writer share goes to you as the songwriter. The publisher share goes to whoever the publisher is. If you self-publish and only join as a writer, you commonly leave the publisher half uncollected, because no publisher entity is registered to receive it. Some PROs will pay late claims for a limited window, but the rules vary, so do not count on it.
If a library or publisher already controls the song, they usually act as the publisher and often register the work for you, taking the publisher share as part of the deal. You still collect the writer share through your own PRO. Do not register the same song with a second publisher claiming the same share, because conflicting claims delay payment for everyone. Before you register a song that has ever been in a library, check what the contract says, which ties into the exclusive versus non-exclusive question. Co-writers each register their own share, and all of them need to enter the same splits.
This is general information, not legal advice, and PRO rules and fees change, so confirm current terms on your PRO's website. For anything unusual in a contract, ask a music attorney.
Pitchkit does not register songs with a PRO. It handles the step that comes before a pitch: paste a brief, and it ranks your own catalog by tempo, key, energy, mood, genre and lyrics, then copies the best fits into a pitch folder with clean artist and title filenames, so what you send matches what you registered. It runs on your Mac and your files are never uploaded.
Related reading: organizing a catalog for pitching, and how to answer a sync brief in under an hour.
Yes. Pitching and licensing do not require membership. Join before any song airs, though, because the cue sheet needs writer and publisher identifiers to route royalties, and most libraries and supervisors ask for your PRO affiliation in their paperwork.
Not as a writer in the same territory at the same time. You choose one PRO and register your songs there. Co-writers may belong to different PROs, and each PRO pays its own member's share.
Usually yes. A buyout covers the sync fee, but performance royalties are a separate right, and the writer share is generally paid to you through your PRO. Check whether the contract also takes the publisher share, since some buyouts do.
Writer membership is free or low-cost at the major US PROs, with fees varying and sometimes higher for a publisher entity. Fees change, so check the current terms on each PRO's website before you apply.
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