Paint a mural or install work in public space
Your copyright survives on someone else's wall. What the owner may then do to it is the fight.
What reaches you, and in what order
Local Government Act 1976
Act 171Permission comes from the local authority under a by-law made under this Act, and the council can require removal. Get the permission in writing before the first coat.
Copyright Act 1987
Act 332Copyright in the mural is yours even though the wall is not. Section 25 moral rights, including integrity, are where the argument lands when a wall is painted over or altered.
National Heritage Act 2005
Act 645On or near a declared heritage site, what may be done to the fabric is controlled and the penalty falls on whoever did it.
Penal Code
Act 574Section 298A on causing religious disharmony also reaches public imagery, and it is the heaviest of these: a minimum of two years' imprisonment, with the Criminal Procedure Code's discharge and good-behaviour-bond routes expressly shut off. Raise its constitutionality early. The Supreme Court held in Mamat bin Daud v Government of Malaysia [1988] 1 MLJ 119 that s.298A is in substance a law about religion, which is a State matter, and so beyond Parliament's power. It has never been repealed and it is still charged. Note the limit of the argument: the reasoning turns on Parliament legislating for the States, so it is at its strongest outside the Federal Territories and weakest in Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan, where Parliament does legislate on State subjects.
Minor Offences Act 1955
Act 336The everyday enforcement route is s.15(2), defacing property, not public nuisance, and it is heavier than people expect: up to a year inside or a fine of RM1,000. This Act reaches Peninsular Malaysia only.
Contracts Act 1950
Act 136The commission agreement should say who owns the copyright, whether it can be altered or removed, and who is liable if the council objects.
Federal Constitution
ConstitutionArticle 10 when the objection is to the content rather than the paint.
Commissioners routinely assume that paying for a mural buys the copyright and the right to alter it. Section 26(2) may give them the first; s.25 does not give them the second.
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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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