Which P.R.O pays the most?

Who gives the most cash for royalties?

ASCAP, BMI or SESAC?

This question comes up alot when up and coming artist/producers hear about publishing. Most casually hear the term when dealing with the music business, mostly from horror stories that’s been out over the years. You hear statements like, “Sucha such label owns all the publishing, “Sucha Such is robbing dudes for their publishing.” “You ain’t got your publishing?, you getting jerked!”..ect

The fact is music publishing is very important to songwriters, composers & producers because that most likely will be your main source of income from music. A lot of times the artist, the ones you see in front of the camera, get very little if any publishing at all because while they are the talent singing/rapping the song, they didn’t MAKE the song. That’s really prevalent in R&B, Pop, Rock more so than Hip-Hop, Rap where the artist usually wrote what he’s spittin, but that’s not always the case in Rap either..

So if you are a songwriter, composer, beat maker and producer who’s not apart of a P.R.O (what ASCAP, BMI, SECSAC are classified as) yet, you obviously want to know who shells out the most bread for your creations.

If you go to all 3 websites (http://www.ascap.com/index.html, http://bmi.com/, http://sesac.com/) they will give you their best pitch as to who is the best, as they are in competition with one another. One thing about SESAC though is that it’s really exclusive, and you pretty much have to be invited to get down with them. SESAC says that on their website, so it’s basically a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” invitation to join that gang. SESAC starts calling normally after you have snagged a COUPLE big hits on your resume.

ASCAP & BMI is a bit more user friendly, and their qualifications are not as strict. As of right now ASCAP charges a $25 processing fee, BMI is free of charge. Even if you don’t have any placements yet in radio, TV, movies..ect, it’s good to join so if you do you are already in the system.

Now, you ask, “Okay, Which one of these gonna get me paid the most?”

From my experience dealing with both ASCAP & BMI myself as a writer & publisher, you get out what you put in. They both pay practically the same in the long run. Both have a system of measuring how ‘important’ your placements and song are in the catalog.

For example, if you place a beat on CSI:, a pretty big show, it holds more ‘credits’ than a random show on The Outdoor Channel. None of the PRO’s reveal how they measure, but they do state that’s the fundamentals of how much money you will receive. Time of day, How many times your song/beat is played, if it’s background or featured music..ect..all play apart also.

So it don’t matter if your with BMI, ASCAP or whoever, they all put about the same weight on the same shows, films & radio spins. Common knowledge should be able to tell you which shows films, & radio spins would make you the most money just from being aware of what’s hot in music, media & popular culture. Not saying that The Outdoor Channel is not the hotness, if you like that do your thing, but you can make a good guess that more people watch CSI.

Some say BMI starts of paying larger & more quickly when you FIRST do something, offering bonuses and incentives when you achieve certain accomplishments, but then it tails off, because you only get that bonus once.

ASCAP seems to pay better over the long haul, with more income over time, with them giving extra credits the more consistent you are with placing music, which is real good for multiple plays such as re-runs for TV music or if you land a hit on radio.

The main answer is that it is what it is, it’s still up to you to get the placements regardless of what PRO you decide. While they offer workshops, services & discounts just like any other organization, at the end of the day they are just collecting the money for the footwork YOU already put in.

-Alpha-bet a.k.a King Akai

twitter.com/KingAkai