Work Registration Terms and Conditions

Thank you for submitting your work(s) for registration with BMI. Please ensure that the works you seek to register comply with the Work Registration Terms and Conditions (the “Registration Terms”) below. For purposes of these Registration Terms, “Material” means any data, cue sheet, sheet music or electronic equivalent, recordings, or other information you submit to BMI to register your works.

You warrant and represent that you are the author, publisher, or owner of the work(s), or have been authorized by the author, publisher, or owner of the work(s) to submit their work(s) for registration with BMI on their behalf (“Authorized User”).

Authorship and Ownership

Authorship: You warrant and represent that a natural person is the writer or co-writer of the works.
Copyrightable: You warrant and represent that your work(s) are eligible for copyright registration with the U.S. Copyright Office. This requires, in part, that the work(s) contain sufficient human-authored expressive elements.
Ownership: You warrant and represent that (i) all of your Material is truthful, accurate, and complete; (ii) you have or are an Authorized User for a party that has all of the rights, authorizations, consents and permissions necessary and sufficient in your Material to grant the rights, licenses and privileges herein, and that our exercise of such rights, licenses and privileges will not obligate BMI to pay any amounts to any third party, and (iii) you and your Material do not and will not, infringe, violate or misappropriate any third-party rights (including any copyright, privacy rights, or any other intellectual property or proprietary rights).
Derivative Works: BMI accepts derivative works, such as parodies and works that “sample” other works, provided that all parties have agreed to the share percentages of the new work. These shares cannot exceed 100% for the writer share and 100% for the publisher share on a 200% basis (or 100% for the total of all writer or publisher shares on a 100% basis). The percentages must be noted on the BMI registration form for the work and a copy of the sample license agreement must be provided to BMI upon request.
Public Domain: If the registration does not properly indicate that a work is based on a public domain source, BMI reserves the right, if at any time such work is found to have a public domain source, to allocate to such work a percentage of the normal logging credit, or in the case of a work having little or no original material, to give no logging credit to such work.
Instrumental and Lyrics Versions of the Same Work: BMI may not, depending on the detail of usage reporting, distinguish between lyric and instrumental performances of a work unless the two versions have different titles. If the lyric and instrumental versions have different titles, performances of the instrumental version will be credited solely to the songwriter or composer and to the publisher of the instrumental version (unless BMI is notified of an agreement that credits the lyricist and lyricist’s publisher). Where the lyric and instrumental versions have the same title, the lyricist and the publisher of the lyric version will each be credited respectively with 100% of the applicable writer and publisher shares for all performances, unless BMI is notified of an agreement that the lyricist and the publisher of the lyric version are to be credited for a stated percentage of all performances.

Works Created with Artificial Intelligence

As noted above, a work must contain sufficient human-authored expressive elements to be copyrightable. This applies to works created with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Where AI merely assists in the creative process, its use does not change the copyrightability of the output. However, at the other extreme, if content is entirely generated by AI, it cannot be protected by copyright and therefore cannot be registered with BMI. Per the U.S. Copyright Office, copyrightability of works using AI is a fact-specific, case-by-case analysis.

Fully AI-Generated Works: BMI does not accept registrations for fully AI-generated works, as those types of works are not copyrightable, a prerequisite for registration with BMI.
Partially AI-Generated Works: BMI accepts registrations for partially AI-generated works as long as the work meets the Copyright Office’s standard of the minimum threshold for human creativity.

Complete Songs

Beats: BMI only registers complete songs. Beats that are not part of a full song are not registerable or payable as a BMI work, and BMI reserves the right to remove such Works from the BMI repertoire and any earnings on such Works from your account.
No Musical Element: BMI does not register works without a musical element. Works that are solely nature sounds, sound effects, or sound design without a musical element are not registerable or payable as a BMI work, and BMI reserves the right to remove such Works from the BMI repertoire and any earnings on such Works from your account.
Spoken Work Material: Spoken word material, including comedy performances, without a musical background are not registerable or compensable. Spoken word material, including comedy performances, with a musical background will be registered only if the background music is original (not based on Public Domain work) and if a substantial part of the recording contains such background music. If registering spoken word material with a substantial portion of background music, a recording must be submitted with the Registration Form.
Commercial Jingles: BMI pays for music contained in advertisements/commercials for compositions greater than five seconds when appearing in nationally broadcast commercials on broadcast television networks, cable networks, and local television broadcasts. To be eligible for payment for commercial jingle royalties, the information listed here must be provided by the affiliate or their representative and e-mailed to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Misconduct

As outlined in our Royalty Policy Manual, if BMI finds that an affiliate has engaged in misconduct either through works registration or otherwise, BMI shall have the right, in its sole discretion, to (i) suspend future royalty distributions; (ii) debit the affiliate’s account for any amounts already distributed; (iii) withdraw the relevant works’ registration from the affiliate’s catalog and remove the work from the BMI repertoire; (iv) exclude relevant works from the provisions of the affiliate’s agreement with BMI; and (v) terminate any affiliation agreement. Misconduct includes, but is not limited to the examples outlined below:

Registration of a Work that is Defamatory or Unsuitable for Broadcast: If we, in our sole judgment, regard a registered work as (i) slanderous, defamatory or libelous of any person or (ii) otherwise unsuitable for broadcast use.
Registration of Infringing Material: If a work infringes on a copyrighted work.
Suspected Fraud: If an affiliate, an affiliate’s agents, employees or representatives, directly or indirectly makes false or misleading statements to BMI including but not limited to submitting, producing, or circulating false documentation (e.g., works registrations or cue sheets) or otherwise causes or contributes in any way to inaccurate reporting of the use, performance count, or ownership of any affiliate’s work(s).
Harm: If an affiliate threatens the safety or security of, or otherwise engages in harassment of, BMI or its employees, including registering Materials that contain any viruses, adware, spyware worms or other harmful or malicious code, or otherwise create a security or privacy risk for any person or entity.
Frivolous Action: If an affiliate takes frivolous actions that cause BMI undue expense.