What is a Performance Rights Organization?
Published February 2, 2026 by Derrik Bosse
A performance rights organization (PRO) exists to make sure songwriters and composers get paid when their music is used in public.
Every time a song is played on the radio, streamed in a bar, performed live at a venue, used on TV, or broadcast online, that use is supposed to generate a performance royalty. But there’s no realistic way for an individual artist to track all of that on their own. There are simply too many platforms, venues, and broadcasters.
That’s where a Performance Rights Organization comes in.
A PRO acts as the middle layer between creators and the world that plays their music. They issue licenses to venues, streaming platforms, radio stations, and broadcasters. They collect the fees from those licenses. Then they track usage data, calculate royalties, and distribute those earnings back to the writers and publishers who own the songs.
It’s not glamorous, and it’s not instant. But it is one of the few systems in place that recognizes music as labor — something with value beyond the moment it’s heard.
Registering with a PRO doesn’t make a song better or more visible. It doesn’t promise success. What it does is make sure that if your work travels, it can carry something back to you.