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Broadcast Music, Inc.

performing rights organization in the United States

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ891885 ↗
Source-derived summary

Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) is a performance rights organization in the United States. It collects blanket license fees from businesses that use music, entitling those businesses to play or sync any songs from BMI's repertoire of over 22.4 million musical works. On a quarterly basis, BMI distributes the money to songwriters, composers, and music publishers as royalties to those members whose works have been performed.

In FY 2022, BMI collected $1.573 billion in revenues and distributed $1.471 billion in royalties. BMI's repertoire includes over 1.4 million songwriters and 22.4 million compositions. BMI is the biggest performing rights organization in the United States and is one of the largest such organizations in the world.

BMI songwriters create music in virtually every genre. BMI represents artists such as Patti LaBelle, Selena, Miley Cyrus, Lil Wayne, Lil Nas X, Birdman, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Eminem, Rihanna, Shakira, Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion, Ed Sheeran, Karol G, J Balvin, Sam Cooke, Michael Jackson, Willie Nelson, Fats Domino and Dolly Parton; bands such as Evanescence, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park, Twenty One Pilots and Fifth Harmony; and composers such as Harry Gregson-Williams, John Williams, Danny Elfman, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Ludwig Göransson, and the Sherman Brothers.

In 1961, BMI co-founded the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, which fosters new musical theater writing talent.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Broadcast Music, Inc.” is performing rights organization in the United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Broadcast, Music and performing, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2022, 1961—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1939. For this dossier, Broadcast, Music and performing is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “performing rights organization in the United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q891885. VIAF identifies the subject as 151905740. The Library of Congress control number is n50065546. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2022 and 1961.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Broadcast Music, Inc.”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Broadcast Music, Inc. primary sources, Broadcast Music, Inc. archive and Broadcast research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Broadcast Music, Inc.”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Broadcast Music, Inc.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.