A restaurant, food court or coffee shop in Brunei Darussalam pays B$510 a year to play background music, plus B$5.10 per person of capacity above the first 50, under the rate card published by BruMusic Copyright Sdn Bhd.
That number is public. Very little else about how the money finds a rightsholder is.
The rate card exists, and it is thorough
BruMusic’s tariff runs to 17 categories, BM01 to BM17. A sample of the published annual rates:
- Retail, malls, salons, offices and spas: B$255 minimum, then B$0.10 per square foot.
- Karaoke, featured music: B$3,400 for the first 50 persons, B$37 for each additional person.
- Kiosks: B$130 each.
- Cinemas: 0.21 percent of gross receipts for music in movies.
- Annual blanket event licence: B$4,300 background, B$9,600 featured, per ballroom, function room or public hall.
Two footnotes on the sheet matter more than the rates. Tariffs are “subject to change by BruMusic without prior notice,” and “licensees are obliged to report accurately music usage data to BruMusic.”
That second line is the distribution engine. Venue-submitted usage reporting decides which recordings get paid, so the accuracy of a Bruneian payout depends on a restaurant manager filling in a form.
One licence, two societies, one agent
CMO means collective management organisation: the body that licenses music on behalf of many rightsholders at once.
Brunei has two. BruMusic represents record producers. BeAT Berhad represents authors and composers, and has authorised BruMusic to license on its behalf, so a venue buys one joint licence covering both.
Since 1 May 2025, BruMusic has also worked through one named local licensing agent, appointed to act on its behalf in all matters relating to sound recording performance rights in the territory.
That is leaner than Malaysia, where three separate bodies still hold the money.
The management address is in another country
The letterhead on the tariff is the detail worth pausing on. BruMusic Copyright Sdn Bhd (RC/00008348) is incorporated in Brunei Darussalam, but the management address printed on its own rate card is “c/o Public Performance Malaysia (PPM) Bhd, L-8-2, No.2, Jalan Solaris Mont Kiara, 50480 Kuala Lumpur,” listed with a +603 Malaysian phone number.
Outsourcing back office to a larger neighbour is rational at this market size. It also means the desk that processes a Bruneian venue’s usage report sits outside Brunei.
What Brunei does not have
Singapore put its societies under a class licence scheme through the Copyright (CMOs) Regulations 2023, covering members’ rights, distribution of tariffs, dispute resolution, governance and reporting, and public disclosure. Brunei has no equivalent supervisor.
It also has no copyright register. Protection flows from the Emergency (Copyright) Order 1999, in force 1 May 2000 and amended in 2013. Asia IP’s Brunei IP Guide 2025, published 4 November 2025 by Hung Zheng On, confirms protection is automatic “without the need for formalities,” running 50 years after the author’s death for musical works and 50 years from creation for sound recordings.
The US Commercial Service guide to Brunei, updated 22 February 2024, lists the Brunei Intellectual Property Office as responsible for patents, trade marks, industrial designs and plant varieties. Copyright is not on that list.
What this means for your catalogue
Brunei had 463,000 internet users at 99.0 percent penetration against a population of 467,000 in Simon Kemp’s Digital 2026 report. Domestic streaming volume will never be the story here. Export will.
Three practical consequences for anyone releasing from Brunei:
- Public performance income is annual, tariff-set and venue-reported. Recording rights sit with BruMusic and works with BeAT, so you need standing with both to see both halves of a play.
- Streaming royalties never touch either society. DSP means digital service provider, and that money arrives through your distributor, not through a blanket licence.
- With no state register, your ownership evidence is your own paperwork. ISRC means International Standard Recording Code, and your ISRC assignments, delivery receipts and signed split sheets are the record that exists.
The same asymmetry runs across the region, from Philippine venue tariffs priced by the day to Laos, which had no collecting society at all. The local licence is the visible number. The distributor statement is the one that pays.
