There will be no Oscar awarded for Best Song at the 2010 film awards ceremony if none of the tunes are deemed to be good enough.
New rules mean that every song entered must get a minimum score of 8.25 (on a bizarre scale of six to 10) when voted for by Academy music members.
"We're trying to improve the quality," says composer Bruce Broughton, head of the Academy's music branch. He added the move would make entries "as good as possible".
"There's been a lot of talk about the songs in films, the lack of memorability compared to songs in the past, the almost forgettability of some of them" said Broughton.
The music branch of the Academy has about 230 members, who rate each song entry.
The winning song of 2009 was Jai Ho from the film Slumdog Millionaire.
Winners from the past 15 years include Bruce Springsteen (Streets Of Philadelphia), Eminem (Lose Yourself) and Bob Dylan (Things Have Changed).
Here's Eminem, the winner in 2003.
