A musician doesn't pay royalties to a songwriter for performing a song live at a venue. The venue (in theory) pays the royalties by joining BMI, ASCAP, or the other similar organization, which in turn distributes the organization's fees to registered songwriters using a formula that no one knows. This in theory is how a songwriter, if he/she joins BMI, ASCAP, or the other receives royalties for public performances of his/her composition. The problem with this is: 1) BMI, ASCAP, etc. pay out very little 2) Keep a amount for themselves to run the organizations 3) Pay sales people commissions to sign up venues to join (and the sales people scare the bewilders out of small venues with live music with legal threats if they don't join, so they can get their commissions...causing venues to opt to not have live music and thus not join. 4) These organizations only really help superstar songwriters as anyone else ends up with pennies for their music being played. 5) There is no real way to track what songwriters' songs are really being played in these
venues.

QM