Using Commercial Music in a Podcast: Malaysian Composition, Recording, and Platform Rights

You cannot use commercial music in a podcast in Malaysia without clearing multiple rights first. A podcast that includes a protected song requires permission covering the composition, the sound recording, and the platform’s own terms. Miss any one of these three layers and you face a takedown, a copyright claim, or a statutory demand under the Copyright Act 1987. Platform tools that flag “licensed music” are not a legal clearance. They are a policy enforcement mechanism that can mute or remove your episode regardless of what rights you believe you have cleared elsewhere.

Using a commercial track in a Malaysian podcast means licensing three separate rights. The first is the composition right, which belongs to the songwriter and the publisher. In Malaysia that right is administered by the Music Authors’ Copyright Protection body, MACP. The second is the sound recording right, which belongs to the label or the person who paid for the master. Public Performance Malaysia, PPM, collects for master owners. The third is not a copyright right at all. It is the platform’s own terms of service, which can block, demonetise, or remove content that contains music the platform has not licensed for that use.

Podcasters who obtain a MACP license but ignore the recording and platform layers have cleared only one third of the problem. A sync license a Malaysian production may need is separate again, because a podcast that uses music as a theme or bed requires synchronisation rights that the blanket public performance licenses do not cover.

MACP is the collective management body for musical works in Malaysia. It licenses the right to reproduce and communicate a composition to the public. You need a license from MACP unless an exception applies. MACP offers a podcast-specific license. It covers the composition right for a set number of episodes or a subscription period. It does not cover the master. It also does not cover use in an advertisement or a film soundtrack, where a sync license is required.

The practical gap is that MACP’s distribution to its own members is slow. Small rights holders report payouts delayed by quarters or years. Live-venue compliance is patchy. The paper coverage of the MACP system exceeds real-world enforcement. Obtaining a MACP license makes you legally compliant on the composition side. Do not assume the songwriter will receive the royalty promptly. That is a structural weakness of the current collective system, not a reason to skip the license.

The recording right is the separate permission required from the owner of the master. In most cases that owner is a record label. Public Performance Malaysia, PPM, administers public performance and broadcast rights for master owners. If you play a commercial recording you must clear this right, either directly with the label or through a PPM license if the podcast qualifies as a broadcast or a public performance under Malaysian law.

The distinction between MACP and PPM is the most common confusion in Malaysian audio licensing. MACP covers the song. PPM covers the recording of that song. A podcast that plays a cover version still needs a composition license from MACP. It may need no recording license from PPM if you recorded the cover yourself and own that master. For a commercial track, you always need at least two licenses: one for the work, one for the recording.

Recording Performers Malaysia, RPM, represents the performers on a recording. The performer’s right is a distinct legal right under the Copyright Act 1987, separate from the composer’s right and the label’s right. RPM collects for performers when a recording is publicly performed or broadcast. A podcast that uses a commercial track may trigger a performer’s right if the use qualifies as a communication to the public.

RPM is less institutionally embedded than MACP or PPM. Its collection efficiency is lower and its distribution infrastructure is newer. The practical question is whether the platform’s existing licenses with RPM cover the podcast use. Many do not. Assume that a commercial track requires clearance from all three bodies unless you have written confirmation to the contrary. Rights clearance in Malaysia is slow precisely because these three bodies operate on separate mandates and separate timelines.

A sync license is permission to synchronise music with a moving image or, in a podcast’s case, with spoken word content in a fixed episode. A blanket public performance license from MACP or PPM does not cover synchronisation. If you use a commercial track as a theme song, a bed under narration, or a recurring sting, the rights holder can argue that the use requires a sync license. The distinction hinges on whether the music is the primary draw or a background element, but the Copyright Act 1987 does not draw a bright line for podcasts. The law predates the format.

Sync licensing in Malaysia is slow. Multiple rights bodies and missing publishers make clearance take weeks or months. Film and advertising projects routinely abandon local music because clearance stalls. Budget more time than expected. Prepare a fallback track that does not require synchronisation clearance. Commissioning original music from a composer who assigns both the composition and the recording rights in writing is the cleanest workaround.

Right	Body	What It Covers	Limitation
Composition right	MACP	Songwriter and publisher share	Does not cover the recording
Sound recording right	PPM	Label or master owner share	Does not cover the composition
Performer’s right	RPM	Performer share on a recording	Not always triggered by a podcast
Platform terms	Spotify, Apple, etc.	Upload and monetisation rules	Not a copyright license

Every major podcast service has music usage rules. Spotify’s terms prohibit uploading content that includes music you do not own or have not licensed. The platform’s own music library is not available for podcasters to use as a soundtrack. Apple Podcasts and YouTube apply similar restrictions. When a platform detects protected music, it may mute the segment, demonetise the episode, or issue a takedown. These actions are automated. They do not require a court order.

You can hold a MACP license and a PPM clearance and still have an episode taken down because the platform’s content ID system does not recognise those licenses. The platform permission is a separate layer that sits on top of copyright law, not beneath it. MCMC, the communications regulator, governs the licensing of online content services in Malaysia, but its guidance does not override a platform’s private terms. The practical result: a legally licensed podcast can still be silenced by an algorithm.

The Copyright Act 1987 provides a fair dealing exception for research, private study, criticism, review, and reporting of current events. A podcast that uses a short clip of a song for criticism or review may fall within fair dealing. The test is not a simple duration check. A Malaysian court would weigh the purpose of the use, the amount taken, and the effect on the market for the original work. There is no statutory safe harbour that says “under thirty seconds is always fair.”

If you rely on fair dealing, be prepared to defend the use if challenged. The burden of proof is on you. In practice, most podcasters who claim fair dealing are not challenged because rights holders focus enforcement on commercial broadcasters and venues. A podcast that becomes popular or monetised changes the risk profile. A takedown notice from a rights holder can remove the episode regardless of the legal merits. You must then decide whether to contest it.

Why Clearance Takes Months

Rights clearance for a single commercial track in Malaysia can take months. The pre-digital catalog from the 1960s through the 1990s is particularly difficult. Many recordings from that era have unclear or fragmented ownership. Labels have folded, publishers have merged, and heirs cannot be located. If you want to use a P. Ramlee or Sudirman track, you face a chain of rights that may be impossible to trace. Even recent recordings can stall if the label used a distribution deal that did not clearly assign digital rights.

Start Early, Bring A Fallback

Start clearance early. Have a fallback track. A mechanical royalty may be owed for reproduction of the work, but identifying the correct payee is the bottleneck, not the payment itself. Producers who treat rights clearance as a box to tick at the end of production find it is the longest step in the process.

Royalty Non-Collection

The single most common failure mode is royalty non-collection. Venues and broadcasters play music without a license because enforcement is weak and awareness is low. That starves the collective system and makes rights holders less willing to license new formats like podcasting. A podcaster who does the right thing and seeks a license may find the system is not set up to process the application efficiently.

Self-Censorship Overreach

The second most common failure is self-censorship overreach. Producers cut material that would likely pass legal review because the guidelines are unclear and the fear of regulatory attention is high. The result is a podcast landscape more cautious than the law requires.

Platform Dependency Collapse

A third failure is platform dependency collapse. A podcaster who builds a catalog on a single local service, as some did during the Raku era, loses access to that catalog when the service dies. The Raku streaming service is defunct. Its catalog and contract status remains an authority gap. If you distributed through Raku, verify that your rights have reverted before re-uploading those episodes elsewhere.

A takedown notice from a platform or a rights holder is not a court order. It is a claim. You can accept it and remove the episode, or contest it. Contesting a takedown in Malaysia requires you to assert that you have a license or that the use is fair dealing. The platform will then decide whether to restore the episode. If the rights holder escalates, the dispute moves to the legal system. The Copyright Act 1987 provides for statutory damages, and a court can order you to pay costs.

Do not ignore a takedown. Document the license you obtained, the date of clearance, and the body that issued it. If no license was obtained, remove the episode and seek qualified advice before using music again. A lawyer who specialises in Malaysian copyright law can assess whether the takedown is valid and what the exposure is. The collective bodies themselves are not legal advisers. MACP, PPM, and RPM can confirm whether a license is in place. They cannot advise on whether a particular use requires one.