The one in the country you live in. It collects everywhere else on your behalf, through agreements that already exist. Here is how that works, what it means for the markets on your statements, and the two registrations it genuinely does not cover.
The network of reciprocal representation agreements between performing-rights societies. Your home PRO is licensed to your counterparts abroad through it.
The equivalent exchange between neighbouring-rights societies, which share performer data so your home society can claim for you in other territories.
Both in the United States, and both only relevant if you have US activity. They are the entire list of exceptions — see below.
Performing-rights societies represent each other under reciprocal agreements, and neighbouring-rights societies do the same through the SCAPR exchange. Your home society licenses your catalogue to its counterparts abroad, they collect locally, and the money comes back to you. Joining a second society in another country does not add income — it splits one membership in two, slows payment while the two work out who represents you, and most will not accept a non-resident anyway.
Seeing revenue from Germany does not mean you need to join GEMA. It means GEMA should be collecting for you already — and if nothing is arriving, the question is whether your home society has you and your works registered, not whether you need a second membership.
A stream, a radio spin or a bar playlist in a market you have never visited. The performance happens under that country’s copyright law, and the local society is the body licensed to collect for it.
GEMA in Germany, PRS in the UK, SACEM in France. They license the venue or the platform and gather the money, without needing to know who you are — they know the work.
Your home society has a representation agreement with theirs. Your catalogue is registered in their database through that agreement, so your share is identified and sent onward rather than sitting unclaimed.
It arrives in your normal distribution, in your own currency, under the one membership you already have. Slower than domestic income — six to eighteen months is typical — but it arrives.
It is the most common piece of bad advice in this field, and it sounds like diligence. Four things actually happen.
Membership is generally restricted to residents and nationals. An application from abroad is usually refused outright, after you have spent the time assembling it.
The money was already being collected and already being routed to you. A second membership does not create a second entitlement to the same performance — there is only one.
Two societies claiming to represent the same writer is a conflict that has to be resolved before either distributes. Your money waits while they establish which of them speaks for you.
Works registered in two places drift apart — different splits, different titles, different ISWCs. That mismatch is one of the most common reasons a royalty goes unmatched entirely.
Both are in the United States, and both only matter if your music is actually being streamed there. This is the whole list.
The MLC pays against a registered work in the US, and a non-US PRO’s reciprocal agreements do not reach it. Register the works yourself, or through a publishing administrator.
The US is outside the treaty article most neighbouring-rights reciprocity runs on, so your home society generally cannot collect these for you without a specific agent arrangement.
If you live in the United States, neither is an exception — they are simply part of your home registration, alongside ASCAP or BMI.
Rekon reads the markets on your own royalty statements, names the one society you should be registered with, and flags a US exception only when your data shows US activity. No list of twenty.