The Malaysian Artistes’ Association (Karyawan) would like to express its appreciation and gratitude to the government, particularly the Minister of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living (KPDN), Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali, for the steps taken to improve the royalty collection and distribution system of the local music industry, which has been a thorn in the industry's side for as long as one can remember.
However, in yesterday's Parliament sitting, Datuk Armizan informed the House that the government's well-intentioned efforts to introduce Guidelines to strengthen transparency in the collection and distribution of music royalties by collective management organisations (CMOs) could not be implemented, following judicial review proceedings filed in court by three organisations, namely MACP, PPM and RPM.
“Karyawan is deeply disappointed with these three bodies for choosing to use the court process to thwart the government's well-intentioned efforts to improve the music royalty collection and distribution process,” said Karyawan President, Datuk Freddie Fernandez.
“What is even more shocking is that two of the three bodies are led by two well-known artistes, namely Dato' M. Nasir, the Chairman of MACP, which represents music creators, and Datuk Seri Sheila Majid, Chairman of Recording Performers Malaysia (RPM), which represents recording artistes and musicians. Both bodies, together with another body representing recording companies named PPM, have filed a judicial review to have the Guidelines set aside.”
“In early 2025, many of the country's music practitioners were overjoyed to hear Datuk Armizan's announcement at a special 'Music Royalty Advocacy' event, where he declared that the Guidelines for CMO’s would be enforced as the best solution to the complaints of music practitioners over the past several decades.”
“Unfortunately, this joy was short-lived. Not only did these three royalty collection bodies boycott the Minister's announcement event, but not long afterwards they filed a judicial review in court to set aside the Guidelines.”
“As a result, the Guidelines, which were supposed to take effect in January this year, have had to be postponed until such time the case is resolved, a process that may take months, maybe even years. In the meantime, music practitioners have to accept that there will be no changes or improvements to the existing royalty collection and distribution systems until the conclusion of the court case.”
“We do not understand why two big names in the music industry like M. Nasir and Sheila Majid do not support these Guidelines, and what their problem is, given that the majority of other music practitioners consider them to be a positive development and beneficial to artistes, composers and other music practitioners as a whole.
Another nagging question is why they did not obtain the views of their members, in the form of an AGM or EGM, before making such an important decision to drag the government to court?
In our view, these Guidelines deserve the support of all music practitioners because they provide music practitioners with greater powers to ensure a royalty system that is more transparent and efficient in comparison to what we have at the moment.”
“Karyawan hopes that both of them will come forward to explain why they chose to take the court action to subvert the efforts of a caring government that is truly concerned about the plight of artistes and musicians and is only trying to solve problems that have plagued the music industry for the past several decades.”
