Since 17 December 2025, the party that owes the live royalty on a commercial show in Indonesia is the event organiser, not the artist on stage. Constitutional Court decision 28/PUU-XXIII/2025 held that the phrase “Setiap Orang” in Article 23(5) of the 2014 Copyright Law has no binding force unless it is read as “termasuk penyelenggara pertunjukan secara komersial”, meaning it includes commercial performance organisers.
The petition was filed on 7 March 2025 by 29 musicians, among them Armand Maulana, Nazril Irham and Raisa Andriana, and granted in part. The decision text is public.
Three phrases changed, and nothing else
Article 23(5) now names the organiser as the paying party. Article 87(1) on “imbalan yang wajar”, or reasonable compensation, must be read as compensation set “sesuai dengan mekanisme dan tarif berdasarkan peraturan perundang-undangan”, so a fee argument in Indonesia is now a tariff argument.
Article 113(2)(f) requires restorative justice to be tried before criminal sanctions, which reach three years and a fine of up to Rp500 million. Moch. Dani Pratama Huzaini set out all three readings for Hukumonline.
Everything else was refused. Article 9(3), which bans commercial use of a work without the author’s permission, survived untouched. Paying the tariff does not substitute for clearing the song.
The Court defined the payer
The decision describes the penyelenggara, the organiser, as the party that designs, manages and runs a show from start to finish: concept, budget, logistics, sponsors and vendors. The pelaku pertunjukan, the performer, is whoever puts the work in front of an audience.
The practical reason, as CNN Indonesia reported on the day: the organiser is the party that knows the exact ticket sales a commercial show turns on.
The direct licence route is now in the ruling
LMKN means Lembaga Manajemen Kolektif Nasional, the national body that collects performance royalties from commercial users.
The Court stated that a rights holder who does not join an LMK is not bound by the “kecuali diperjanjikan lain” wording and may collect through a direct agreement with the user, which the decision names as a direct licence system. A society member can still reserve part of that right by contract, under Article 81.
For a publisher outside the Indonesian societies, that is the sentence to keep: the invoice can go to the promoter under contract rather than into the collective pool.
What the tariff is
Under Government Regulation 56 of 2021, users pay through LMKN immediately after commercial use whether or not a licence agreement exists (Article 10), and it collects for members and non-members alike (Article 12), per Klinik Hukumonline.
Concert rates still run off ministerial decree HKI.2.OT.03.01-02 of 2016: 2 percent of gross ticket sales, plus 1 percent on complimentary tickets, and 2 percent of production cost where a show is not ticketed. Rouse’s Rohin Pujari set those out for World Trademark Review, republished by Conventus Law.
Permenkum 27 of 2025, issued on 7 August 2025, requires the user to apply for a licence and report usage through SILM, the ministry’s song and music information system.
What a label does with this
A promoter settling at 2 percent is not a rightsholder being paid. Indonesia is already holding Rp70 billion in royalties nobody has claimed, and its rules put an expiry date on catalogue that goes unlogged.
Distribution puts a recording on Spotify Indonesia and Joox. It does not register the composition with an LMK or get writer splits into SILM, and only the second filing collects when a promoter pays the live tariff.
Two clauses now earn their drafting time in an Indonesian live deal: who clears the composition under Article 9(3), and which route the Article 23(5) payment takes.
The liability record shows why. The Commercial Court at Jakarta Pusat ordered a performer to pay Rp1.5 billion on 30 January 2025, at Rp500 million for each of three shows, and the Supreme Court granted cassation in case 825 K/Pdt.Sus-HKI/2025 on 11 August 2025 and voided the award. The songwriter then told detikPop on 19 August 2025 he would revise his police report to point at the organisers.
Unlike Laos, whose digital royalties are still collected in Bangkok, Indonesia’s question is no longer who collects. It is whether your name is on the work when the organiser pays.
