Compliance tool — Malaysia
Music Licensing Cost & Coverage Calculator
Commercial music in Malaysia carries five separate rights. MACP and PPM licence some of them, and RPM sits alongside as a third, artist-specific body. Enter your venue’s zones below to see what the collecting bodies would charge — and which rights would still be missing.
Why three bodies still leave a gap
Most Malaysian businesses assume that once MACP and PPM are in place, their background music is fully licensed. It isn’t. MACP licenses the public performance of the composition — the melody and lyrics. PPM licenses the public performance and reproduction of the sound recording — the specific track as recorded. Between them, that’s three of five commercial music rights, and it can take two separate invoices, assessed against two different tariff schedules, to get there.
Malaysia also has a third body: RPM, which represents Malaysian recording artistes specifically and collects equitable remuneration on their behalf under the Copyright Act 1987. RPM sits outside the standard five-rights framework — it isn’t required for every piece of repertoire — but where it applies, it’s a further cost on top of MACP and PPM, not a substitute for either.
Even holding all three licences in full, two rights are still missing everywhere in Malaysia: master/recording rights and publishing rights for commercial use. No collecting society sells them, and no combination of MACP, PPM and RPM licences includes them. A venue can pay every invoice from all three bodies on time and still be operating without the rights that would ordinarily be cleared through a direct licence with the rights holder.
This calculator uses MACP’s, PPM’s and RPM’s own published tariffs to show what a venue’s current society costs actually are, zone by zone, and sets that beside a single MUSICVYBE subscription for the same footprint — one licence, covering all five rights, with nothing left to source separately, and no RPM exposure to manage at all.
PPM’s reproduction right is triggered by copying a recording — to a player, a hard drive or a streaming cache. Playing a physical disc or tape directly makes no copy, so no reproduction licence is needed. Almost every commercial background music system today is digital.
Add one row for each area with its own speaker system. MACP, PPM and RPM each assess most venues zone by zone, so a hotel lobby, a restaurant and a retail floor are separate assessments — and hotel rates change again depending on star rating.
How this is calculated
Every figure comes from MACP’s, PPM’s and RPM’s own published tariff schedules, applied exactly as each body applies them. MACP and RPM charge per seat, per person or per square foot depending on venue type, each with its own published minimum fee. PPM’s public performance tariff follows the same zone-based logic; PPM’s reproduction licence works differently — it’s assessed by business category rather than by zone, so a venue spanning more than one category (for example a hotel with a retail outlet on-site) moves into a higher reproduction band regardless of the size of either zone. Selecting a physical media source removes the reproduction figure entirely, because no copy of the recording is made — an honest distinction, and one most venues won’t be able to use, since almost no commercial system still runs on physical media.
Hotel figures change by star rating because MACP, PPM and RPM all tier hotel guest-room rates by classification, not just by room count — a 3-star-and-above property pays a higher per-room rate than a 2-star or unrated one across all three bodies.
The result is a like-for-like comparison: what MACP, PPM and RPM would charge for the areas entered, against a single MUSICVYBE subscription covering the same footprint — with the difference being MUSICVYBE’s five-rights coverage closing a gap none of the three bodies were ever set up to close, and RPM exposure removed entirely rather than managed.
Figures exclude any applicable tax and are indicative. Each body retains discretion over which tariff line applies to a given premises and over annual CPI adjustments, and a written assessment from MUSICVYBE will confirm the exact figure for your venue before you make any decision.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need licences from MACP, PPM and RPM?+
If you play any commercially released recording in a business premises in Malaysia, you need MACP (composition) and PPM (sound recording performance and reproduction) at minimum. RPM applies on top of these where Malaysian-artist repertoire is involved, collecting equitable remuneration for performers under the Copyright Act 1987. They are separate rights, administered by separate bodies, and none of them substitutes for another.
If I already hold MACP and PPM, am I fully covered?+
No. MACP and PPM between them cover public performance of the composition, public performance of the sound recording, and — where reproduction applies — reproduction of the sound recording. Master/recording rights and publishing rights for commercial use aren’t administered by MACP, PPM or RPM, and aren’t included in any licence from any of the three.
What is RPM, and do I always need it?+
RPM (Recording Performers Malaysia Berhad) represents Malaysian recording artistes specifically. It sits outside the standard five-rights framework and applies where the repertoire played involves RPM’s members. Because it’s a separate cost on top of MACP and PPM, it’s worth confirming with RPM directly whether your venue’s repertoire triggers it — MUSICVYBE’s direct-licensing model bypasses this question entirely.
Why do hotel rates change by star rating?+
MACP, PPM and RPM all set higher per-guest-room and lobby rates for 3-star-and-above properties than for 2-star and below. It’s a classification-based tier applied by each body independently, not a MUSICVYBE distinction.
Is a consumer streaming subscription like Spotify licensed for business use?+
No. Consumer streaming services are explicitly licensed for personal, non-commercial use only. Playing one in a business premises doesn’t satisfy any of the five commercial music rights, regardless of whether the venue separately holds MACP, PPM or RPM licences.
How does MUSICVYBE cover all five rights in one subscription?+
MUSICVYBE holds direct licences from IP owners covering all five commercial music rights — including master/recording and publishing rights that no collecting body administers — in a single subscription, usable across any venue without separate payments to MACP, PPM or RPM.
For the full business case on licensing coverage, see our guide to music licensing for businesses in Malaysia.
Further reading: Music licensing · Sound recording copyright · Collective rights management