Laos now has a government-accredited music collecting society that belongs to CISAC, but the streaming royalties owed to Lao songwriters are still collected in Bangkok by a Thai society and passed back, so a Lao writer’s publishing money crosses a border twice before it lands.
The society is real. The collection desk is in another country.
LASCAP, the Lao Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, was founded in 2020 by the hip-hop artist Bounlay Kouangmanivanh, who performs as MCBK. A WIPO case study puts its membership at around 300, most of them young artists.
Music Copyright (Thailand), known as MCT, approached Bounlay, helped launch the society and signed a reciprocal agreement with it. WIPO reports MCT is still the body collecting digital platform royalties on LASCAP’s behalf, with LASCAP distributing them to members.
In June 2026 LASCAP joined CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, whose membership opens up shared works databases and the standard reciprocal network. WIPO credits its Mentorship Program for Managers of CMOs, run with the Lao Department of Intellectual Property since 2024, with securing both that seat and LASCAP’s government accreditation.
Where a Lao song’s data actually gets matched
Because MCT is the collecting point, Lao digital royalties are matched inside a Thai processing stack.
BMAT said in March 2026 that MCT is extending their work together to video-on-demand usage through BMAT’s Music Operating System, building on a relationship that began in 2020. BMAT says it serves more than 140 CMOs and PROs across 250 territories, processes around EUR 1.5 billion in digital royalties a year, and aligns usage to rights data using ISWC and ISRC identifiers.
MCT also co-founded AAMRO, a shared licensing and distribution hub formed with SESAC in July 2023 alongside FILSCAP in the Philippines, WAMI in Indonesia, MACP in Malaysia and VCPMC in Vietnam, per RightsTech.
So a Lao work is paid or unpaid on the strength of its ISWC and ISRC. Bad identifiers do not fail quietly in Vientiane. They fail in Bangkok, where nobody knows your catalogue.
The January 2026 decision, and the gap it has not closed
The Lao Digital Gazette published a Decision on Collective Management Organizations on 26 January 2026, as reported by Asia IP Law on 6 February 2026. It sets the legal basis for creating and running CMOs, lets them license uses, collect the income and distribute it, and contemplates cooperation with foreign CMOs for cross-border repertoire.
The consultant Dino Santaniello told Asia IP Law the regulation “can materially strengthen Laos’ creative sector” but that “everything depends on implementation,” and that the outcome turns on whether CMOs “build credible repertoires and databases.”
The gap is public performance. LASCAP board member Sophana Saengthong told WIPO that nobody currently collects royalties when music is played in bars and at events. Bounlay expects implementing legislation on licensing and performance rights early in 2027, after which LASCAP intends to negotiate directly with digital services and approach hotels, cafes and malls.
What to do if you hold Lao repertoire
- Register the compositions with LASCAP now. The CISAC seat makes those registrations visible to the reciprocal network, and the 2027 regime will pay against what is already on file.
- Secure ISWCs for the works, not only ISRCs for the recordings. The ISWC is what the publishing side matches on.
- Keep writer splits and name spellings identical across your distributor, LASCAP and any sub-publisher. A transliterated Lao name entered three ways is three unmatched claims.
- Do not budget Lao public performance income before 2027. No collection is happening in bars and venues today.
- Treat the recording royalty separately. LASCAP and MCT handle author rights; recording revenue arrives through your distributor.
Why the delivery side decides this
The author-side money already leaves Laos to be matched by a third party, so the identifiers and splits supplied at delivery are the only thing travelling with the song. InterSpace Distribution builds deliveries around DDEX, which means Digital Data Exchange, the standard message format DSPs and societies consume, and exposes split detail in the artist royalty dashboard. That is not a Laos feature. It is what makes a Laos claim possible at all.
Related: Laos in the ASEAN survey, Thailand licensing royalty collectors, Malaysia’s three-body split.
