DJ a club night
You are playing other people's recordings to a paying room. Three separate licences, one venue licence, a state layer, and a tax nobody budgets for.
What reaches you, and in what order
Collecting societies
Licensing bodiesPlaying recorded music to a paying room engages three separate claims held by three separate bodies: MACP for the musical work, PPM for the sound recording, and RPM for the performers on it. A room holding one of the three is under-licensed, and the liability lands on whoever put the night on.
Copyright Act 1987
Act 332Public performance and communication to the public are acts the copyright owner controls. Your own edits, bootlegs and mashups are derivative works: making one is a permission, playing it is a second, releasing it is a third.
Entertainment (Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur) Act 1992
Act 493In Kuala Lumpur the premises needs an entertainment licence, and the conditions attached to it are where hours and content are actually controlled. The licence, not a statute, is usually what a shutdown is based on.
State entertainment enactments
State lawOutside KL the same power sits in state enactments and council by-laws, and they differ by state. Confirm the licensing position before you confirm the date.
Local Government Act 1976
Act 171Operating hours, amplified noise and premises licensing come from local authority by-laws made under this Act. If you are being moved on or closed early, this is usually why.
Entertainments Duty Act 1953
Act 103Entertainments duty is charged on payments for admission. In the Federal Territories it runs under the Entertainments Duty Act 1953, where the Collector is the Minister of Finance and the rate is set by resolution of the Dewan Rakyat. Outside the Federal Territories each state has its own entertainment duty enactment and its own rate and exemptions, so confirm which one you are under before you price the ticket. Either way it is a real line on a ticketed show's budget and first-time promoters leave it out.
Income Tax Act 1967
Act 53Book a non-resident DJ and the withholding under s.109A is yours, not the artist's. The rate is 15 per cent of the gross under Part II of Schedule 1, you deduct on paying or crediting and you must account for it and pay it to the Director General within one month. Miss it and s.109(2) adds a further 10 per cent and makes the whole thing a debt payable forthwith. If you book through a company the debt is the company's, but s.75A makes any director who controls twenty per cent or more of the shares jointly and severally liable for it, which in a two-person promoter company is everybody.
Immigration Act 1959/63
Act 155A performance is work, so a foreign DJ needs the right pass. A social visit pass is the wrong pass and the exposure runs to the person who brought them in.
PUSPAL
GuidelinesForeign performers also need PUSPAL clearance before the immigration pass issues, and that is usually the binding constraint on your timeline, not the pass itself.
Contracts Act 1950
Act 136The booking is a contract whether or not anyone signed anything. Section 28 makes agreements in restraint of trade void, and Malaysian courts do not soften a restraint for reasonableness the way English courts do; if it is a restraint it is simply void. But the section bites on what happens **after** the deal ends. A radius clause that stops you playing another room in the weeks after this show is squarely in its sights. An exclusivity that only binds you while the booking is on foot is not: in Polygram Records v Hillary Ang the High Court upheld exactly that kind of in-term exclusive against a band. Treat the post-term restriction as the weak one and the in-term one as real.
Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994
Act 514** `Since 1 June 2024 the safety duty can land on you, the person running the night, and not only on the crew's own employer. It lands on you if you are telling them how to do the work. If you leave the method entirely to their employer, that particular duty is not yours.
Anti-Sexual Harassment Act 2022
Act 840The Tribunal takes complaints from outside an employment relationship, which is exactly the shape harm takes in nightlife: a freelancer and a gatekeeper who is not their employer.
Penal Code
Act 574Section 294(b) reaches whoever, **to the annoyance of others**, sings, recites or utters any obscene song, ballad or words in or near any public place. Annoyance to somebody is part of the offence, not background, and it is the first thing to test. The maximum is three months' imprisonment, a fine, or both.
Service Tax Act 2018
Act 807Once past the registration threshold, event and related services can be taxable. The list is widened by order most years, so check the current schedule rather than a remembered figure.
The single most common failure is the room assuming one licence covers the music. It does not. MACP, PPM and RPM are three separate bodies collecting on three separate rights, and each sets its own tariff.
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