The Composers and Authors Society of Singapore will stop paying Unlogged Performance Allocation to members who earn less than SGD 50 in logged performing royalties over three consecutive years, with the amended rule taking effect in distributions from 1 October 2026.
COMPASS published it as an update to Distribution Rule No. 5.1(a), approved at the society’s 38th Annual General Meeting on 29 August 2025.
What UPA is, and why the threshold bites
CMO means collective management organisation, the body that licenses public performance and broadcast and splits the proceeds among writers and publishers. COMPASS is Singapore’s CMO for musical works and lyrics.
UPA is its proxy payment for usage nobody reported. In the society’s own words, it “was initially created to address issues of missing or untimely program returns by music users.”
The new eligibility test, per the COMPASS notice:
- A member must have received at least SGD 50 in performing royalties, excluding UPA, for the relevant period.
- Members who fail to earn SGD 50 cumulatively over three consecutive years lose the allocation.
- Eligibility is reinstated in the year a member next clears SGD 50 inside a new three-year window.
The logic runs in a circle for the smallest catalogues. UPA exists because venues and broadcasters file incomplete returns, and the writers those returns miss are the ones playing rooms nobody logs.
Neighbours are moving the other way on access. Malaysia’s MACP cut its writer membership bar to a single song with 1,000 streams, while Laos still has no collecting society at all.
Singapore regulates its societies. It does not regulate their prices.
Singapore placed CMOs under a class licensing scheme built on the Copyright Act 2021 and the Copyright (CMOs) Regulations 2023, announced on 31 October 2023 and in force from 1 May 2024.
The regulator can issue directions, impose financial penalties and order a society to stop trading. What it does not do, per IPOS, is “interfere in the fees that CMOs charge for the use of the material they manage.”
Five CMOs are currently listed by IPOS, two of them for music: COMPASS and Music Rights (Singapore). The good practice guidelines the office promised are still marked as in development.
On the recording side, the money follows ownership
The Copyright Act 2021, in force from 21 November 2021, created a right to equitable remuneration when a commercially published sound recording is heard in public or broadcast in Singapore. That right sits with the sound recording owner.
MRSS administers it. The society was formed on 18 July 2018, represents more than 40 labels including Sony, Universal and Warner alongside independents, and distributes to member labels and producers.
Performers got something different from the same Act: a right to be identified when their performance is used in public. Attribution, not remuneration. Without the master, Singapore public performance money is not yours to claim.
What a Singaporean artist should do before 1 October
- Pull your COMPASS statements. Three years of logged performing royalties under SGD 50 puts you in the group the rule removes.
- Register every work, including co-writes, and file live setlists wherever the society accepts them. Logged usage is the only route back over the threshold.
- Keep the master. Equitable remuneration follows recording ownership, so assigning the copyright assigns that income with it.
- Do not assume a distributor collects performance royalties. Distribution covers DSP payouts, not COMPASS or MRSS money.
- Fix ISRC and ownership metadata at delivery. DDEX means Digital Data Exchange, the standard message format carrying rights ownership downstream. Wrong owner data at source stays wrong at every society downstream.
The visibility is new. The floor is going.
Singapore’s national chart is younger than its rights framework. The Official Singapore Chart runs weekly on Tuesdays from Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify and YouTube data, rebranded from the RIAS Chart in January 2025 and folded into IFPI’s Official Southeast Asia Charts announced on 30 September 2025.
At All That Matters 2025, IFPI recognised Regina Song, Benjamin Kheng, Stefanie Sun and ALYPH for top-selling local tracks. The 29th COMPASS Awards follow on 13 September 2026.
The scene now has a chart, five licensed societies and a statutory remuneration right. From October it will not have a floor under its quietest songwriters.
