PRO's

These PROs represent music composers and publishers by licensing and collecting royalties from businesses that
publicly perform, i.e., broadcast or play, the composers' and publishers' music. ASCAP, BMI and SESAC collect
information about what music is being performed so they can pay composers and publishers some of the money that
was paid to them by the businesses that performed their music. A composer can only be a member of one PRO at a time,
but music publishers can have affiliates of two or all three PROs.
 

In short, the relationship is like this:

PRO licenses a business

the business plays music and the business pays PRO

PRO pays the composer/publisher for the music
that was played by the business.

If you want to learn more about PRO's please visit the history and FAQ section of our website.