Someone used your work without asking
Before anything else, check that you own it. Most of these come apart on ownership rather than on the copying, and s.26(2) of the Copyright Act is usually why. Once that's settled, the question is whether this is infringement, passing off, or neither.
What reaches you, and in what order
Copyright Act 1987
Act 332Copyright arises without registration, but there is a register: Voluntary Notification under s.26A puts your claim on the Register of Copyright, and a certified extract is prima facie evidence of ownership admissible in court. If you never notified, your evidence is files, dates and drafts, and a statutory declaration of ownership under section 42.
Trademarks Act 2019
Act 815If what was taken is a name, a logo or a get-up rather than a work, this is trademark territory, or passing off if you never registered. Different test, different remedy.
Industrial Designs Act 1996
Act 552If it is the shape or ornament of a mass-produced article, registration under this Act is the protection. Check section 13B of the Copyright Act first: twenty-five years after articles made to the work were first marketed, the copyright you were relying on no longer stops copying.
Contracts Act 1950
Act 136If there was ever a brief, a quote or a deal, the stronger claim is often breach of contract rather than infringement. It is easier to prove and the damages are easier to calculate.
Specific Relief Act 1950
Act 137An injunction to stop the use is usually what you actually want, and damages are usually not enough. This is the Act that gives it.
Collecting societies
Licensing bodiesIf the use is music being performed or broadcast, the practical route is usually the licensing body and its tariff rather than a claim of your own. A dispute about a licensing scheme or the terms of a licence goes to the Copyright Tribunal; your own infringement action under section 37 is not displaced by it.
Communications and Multimedia Act 1998
Act 588For online use, the platform takedown route, and s.233 where the use is abusive rather than commercial.
Online Safety Act 2025
Act 866Platform duties give a second removal route that does not need a court.
Trade Descriptions Act 2011
Act 730Where the copy is being sold as goods under your registered mark, the criminal route is Part XV of the Trademarks Act 2019, enforced by the Ministry of Domestic Trade. If the falsity is about the goods rather than the mark, the Trade Descriptions Act 2011 applies instead. Both carry criminal penalties.
Defamation Act 1957
Act 286If the use also misrepresents you or damages your reputation, that is a separate claim with its own defences.
Stamp Act 1949
Act 378Stamp within thirty days of execution. Late stamping costs you the unpaid duty plus, under s.47A, RM50 or ten per cent of the deficient duty (whichever is greater) if you fix it within three months of the deadline, and RM100 or twenty per cent (whichever is greater) after that. Since 1 January 2026 most arts agreements fall in Phase 1 of the stamp duty self-assessment system, which means you assess and pay through MyTax yourself and can be audited on it afterwards. LHDN has waived certain 2026 penalties for getting the self-assessed return wrong, but that waiver does not touch late stamping, so an old unstamped agreement is still a full-penalty problem.
Limitation Act 1953
Act 254Six years from when the cause of action accrued, which for infringement is the date of the infringing act, not the date you found out. Section 29 only postpones time where the claim is based on the other side's fraud, where they concealed the claim by fraud, or where you are seeking relief from a mistake. Simply not knowing is not enough, so date-stamp your discovery and take advice early rather than assuming the clock has not started.
Send nothing before you have settled ownership. A letter of demand from someone who turns out not to own the work is worse than silence, and s.26(2) means that happens often.
Related situations
Release and distribute a track
Ownership, registration and the two separate rights in every recording.…
ScenarioLicence a song for an ad, film or game
Two permissions, usually from two different owners, and a blanket licence is neither of them.…
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…
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.
Please do not act, or decide not to act, on the strength of this page alone. Take advice from an advocate and solicitor on your own facts. To the extent permitted by law, ALIM and its contributors accept no liability for any loss arising from reliance on this page.
If you have a live problem, talk to us. It is free and confidential.