Archive, conserve or exhibit heritage material
Listing constrains the owner, export catches the unaware, and copyright outlives everyone who could give permission.
What reaches you, and in what order
National Heritage Act 2005
Act 645The National Heritage Register, declaration of sites and objects, and controls on export and alteration. Declaration constrains what an owner may do with their own property, and objects get caught on export without anyone realising they were listed.
National Archives Act 2003
Act 629Public records, their transfer and disposal, and the access provisions. This decides what may lawfully be copied or exhibited from a public collection.
Copyright Act 1987
Act 332Term depends on what the item is. Literary, musical and artistic works run for the author's life plus fifty years. Sound recordings, films and broadcasts run fifty years from the year after publication, fixation or broadcast, with no reference to anyone's death. Most archive material is still in copyright and often has no traceable owner, so duration and first ownership are the two questions, and you must ask them per item.
Distribution Act 1958
Act 300When a non-Muslim artist dies intestate in Peninsular Malaysia or Sarawak, the Distribution Act 1958 decides who inherits the catalogue and therefore who can now give you permission; s.6 sets the shares between spouse, issue and parents. The Act does not apply in Sabah, which has its own succession law, and by s.2 it does not apply to the estate of a Muslim at all. A Muslim artist's estate is distributed under faraid, and the people who can licence the work are those named in the sijil faraid issued by the Syariah court. Establish which regime you are in before you write to anyone.
Marrakesh Treaty
TreatyThe basis for making and sharing accessible-format copies without the rightholder's permission.
Personal Data Protection Act 2010
Act 709Filming the room means processing other people's personal data. Since 1 June 2025 you must notify the Commissioner of a personal data breach as soon as practicable and no later than 72 hours after it happens, and then tell the affected people within 7 days of notifying the Commissioner where the breach causes or is likely to cause them significant harm. Note the trigger: the 72 hours runs from the breach happening, not from you finding out about it, and if you miss it you have to give the Commissioner a written explanation with supporting evidence. There is no size threshold on that duty. The data protection officer duty is different: it only bites if you process the personal data of 20,000 or more people, the sensitive personal data of 10,000 or more, or your core activity is regular and systematic monitoring. Almost no individual artist will reach that.
National Visual Arts Development Board Act 2011
Act 724The statutory framework behind national collection acquisition and disposal.
Official Secrets Act 1972
Act 88Classified material, where the Minister's certificate is conclusive.
The orphan works problem has no clean Malaysian solution. Document your diligent search before you publish, because that record is the only mitigation available.
Related situations
Shoot and screen a film or documentary
Approval is the gate, a FINAS licence is the price of admission, and possession alone is an offence.…
ScenarioExhibit and sell your work
Selling the object is not selling the copyright, and the commission clause decides who owned it in the first p…
ScenarioPublish a book or zine
Printing needs a licence, publishing needs a permit, and the Minister can prohibit the result outright.…
This page is published by ALIM (Art × Law Initiative Malaysia) as general legal information for Malaysia’s creative communities. It is not legal advice. It does not take your circumstances into account, and reading it does not create a solicitor-client relationship with ALIM or with anyone associated with it.
The law changes. Each Act reproduced here is the Attorney General’s Chambers’ consolidated reprint and carries the date it was consolidated to; amendments made after that date do not appear in the text, and the authoritative version of any Malaysian law is the one published in the Federal Gazette. Subsidiary legislation, state enactments and local authority by-laws may also apply to your situation and are largely outside this library.
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