BMI for Songwriters: How It Works and How to Register

BMI — Broadcast Music, Inc. — is the largest US performing rights organization by writer count. About 1.5 million songwriters and composers are affiliated, plus over a million publishers. If your music gets played on US radio, broadcast TV, in venues, or streamed digitally, BMI collects performance royalties on behalf of its affiliated writers and publishers. (Quick reference card with joining cost, payout cadence, and reciprocal partners on our CMO directory.)

This is the practical breakdown of what BMI does, how to register, and where the gaps are.

Short answer: BMI collects US performance royalties for its affiliated writers and publishers. Joining is free; the publisher side is where indie writers leave 50% of every royalty unclaimed. Register every song with full splits or the money stalls.

What BMI collects

The same as ASCAP and SESAC: performance royalties. Whenever a song in BMI's catalog is publicly performed, BMI collects a fee from the licensee and distributes it to the writer and publisher.

The four major sources:

• Broadcast (radio + TV)
• Background music in commercial spaces
• Live venue performances
• Digital streaming (the performance side of every Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, YouTube stream)

BMI works on a blanket-license model: a radio station pays BMI a fee for the right to play any song in the catalog. BMI then samples or censuses the actual usage and distributes the money accordingly.

What BMI does NOT collect

• Mechanical royalties (the MLC and HFA)
• Sync placements (handled by whoever cleared the license)
• Master recording income (label or artist)
• International performance (foreign CMOs in their respective territories)
• Neighboring rights for sound recordings (SoundExchange in the US, foreign equivalents abroad)

If you want all of the above plus your BMI performance royalties, you need an admin or someone running multiple registrations.

How to register

Affiliate as a writer

BMI accepts open applications. It's free. They issue you an IPI number and a BMI affiliation. Approval typically takes a few weeks.

Apply at bmi.com. You'll need:

• Legal name + address
• Bank info or check delivery address
• Tax info (W-9 for US, W-8BEN for international)

Set up a publisher account

If you don't have a publisher, set up a self-publishing entity. The publisher side of every performance royalty is 50% of the total — leaving it unaffiliated means BMI either holds the money or pays it to nobody, depending on the source.

The mechanics:

1. Pick a publishing entity name. Has to be unique within BMI's system.
2. File the publishing entity application (separate from your writer affiliation).
3. Once accepted, BMI gives you a publisher IPI number.
4. From that point, when you register a song, you can split the publisher side between your own publisher and any other publisher you're working with.

Davincii is set up as a BMI-affiliated publisher (DVCI MUSIC). For our roster, we register the publisher side so writers don't have to maintain their own publisher accounts.

Registering works

Every song needs its own registration. BMI's portal is at portal.bmi.com. Each work needs:

• Title (and any alternate titles — important if a song has been released multiple times under different names)
• Writers with their BMI/ASCAP/SESAC affiliations and IPI numbers
• Writer share splits totaling 100%
• Publisher splits totaling 100%
• Performance type (recorded, broadcast, live, etc.)
• ISWC code (BMI issues this on registration if it's a new work)

Common reasons a registration stalls:

• A co-writer is at ASCAP and registered different splits than you did at BMI. Both PROs flag the conflict, neither pays out until you reconcile.
• You forgot to add the publisher side. Money sits in the unmatched pool.
• Stage name vs legal name mismatches between your BMI account and the version your distributor reported to streaming services. Resolves slowly.

Payout schedule

BMI pays quarterly. Lag is similar to ASCAP — about 6 months from the end of the quarter when the music played to when the check arrives. Statement detail is good: BMI shows source breakdown (radio vs TV vs streaming vs venue).

A song played in January typically pays in late September.

BMI vs ASCAP

The two are very similar in what they do — the ASCAP guide is the mirror of this page. Differences:

• Scale. BMI has more affiliated writers (1.5M vs 875K) and a larger publisher base.
• Affiliation cost. Both are free for writers. BMI charges a one-time $150 publisher fee; ASCAP charges $50 for solo publishers and $250 for full publisher entities.
• Distribution philosophy. Both use a mix of census (every play counted) and sample (statistical extrapolation). BMI traditionally weighs radio more heavily; ASCAP weighs venue and venue-licensee fees more visibly. The differences matter at the margins, not at the base.
• Membership culture. ASCAP has writer's lounges, member events, advances for established writers. BMI has similar but with a different vibe. Personal taste.

You can only be affiliated with one PRO per song. Switching is allowed but you typically wait until your affiliation term ends (usually annual or biennial).

What Davincii does at BMI

For our roster, the BMI work is:

1. Affiliation review. Make sure each artist's writer account is correct, IPI verified.
2. Publisher administration. Songs are registered to DVCI MUSIC as the publisher (when artists have signed onto our admin agreement). The 50% publisher share that would otherwise go unclaimed comes through us — we take 15%, send 85% to the artist.
3. Catalog registration. Every song registered with full metadata: ISWC, splits, all co-writer details, all publisher links.
4. Conflict resolution. When a co-writer at ASCAP registers different splits, we coordinate with the co-writer's representation to fix the registration.
5. Royalty audit. Quarterly review of statements against expected revenue, flag missing income, file claims when usage shows up but money doesn't.

If you're a BMI writer doing this yourself, that's a doable amount of work for a small catalog. For a 50–500 song catalog with active streaming and sync activity, it's a job.