Where or who do songwriters send their songs to?

How do you register songs with collecting societies when the collaborating songwriters have different nationalities and are signed with different collecting societies?

• In order for a songwriter to be paid remuneration for the usage of songs on the radio, in commercials etc, songwriters have to sign with a collecting society as ASCAP, BMI (US), Buma (the Netherlands), Gema (Germany) and their songs have to be registered as well. What happens if a song is co-written by 2 songwriters with different nationalities and are thus singed at differenct collecting societies (i.e. Buma & Gema). To which collecting society will the song be registered? Any other things to keep in mind in these situations?

• Answer:

  The person who owns the song registers it with their collecting society, but supplies the information for the other songwriters society also. I had to do this  when I collaborated with an Australian artist.