Music royalty organization in Nepal tackles unpaid royalties, sends out 34,000 letters
16 July 2026
The Music Royalty Collection Society Nepal (MRCSN) sent 34,000 letters at once to various media companies and business establishments across the country regarding unpaid royalties.
Among these were radio and television companies, internet service provider organizations, hotels, resorts, dining establishments, casinos, discos, public transportation, airports, tourist vehicles and others.
These establishments were urged to pay royalties for music that they broadcast or play inside their venues. MRCSN sent the letters after repeated verbal and written requests to these establishments to fulfill their obligation.
According to MRCSN’s legal officer Sapana Gharti Magar as reported by Ratopati News Network, they will remind these establishments about their royalty payments twice by phone if they do not act on the correspondence. If these businesses continue with their inaction for three months after such reminders, the MRCSN will be compelled to file a complaint with the police.
Ram Chandra Subedi | founding and managing partner @ Apex Law Chamber, Kathmandu
For Ram Chandra Subedi, founding and managing partner at Apex Law Chamber in Kathmandu, sending 34,000 letters is an admirable wake-up call, but letters alone won’t change institutional behaviour. To protect its creative IP, he said Nepal needs a multi-pronged strategy.
First of these strategies, he said, is to trigger legal and criminal penalties. “The Copyright Act allows for fines and even up to six months of imprisonment for non-compliance. MRCSN must follow through on their three-month ultimatum. Filing police complaints and actively shutting down or penalizing a few high-profile defaulters will send a powerful message that the era of impunity is over,” he explained.
Another is to link royalties to business licence renewals. This means that the government should mandate that businesses cannot renew their licenses, tax clearances or tourism registrations if they refuse to pay royalties.
A third strategy is to modernize the monitoring infrastructure. “Right now, businesses challenge the billing because tracking is opaque. The government’s newly formed inquiry committee needs to prioritize investing in digital monitoring systems, like digital audio fingerprinting for broadcasters. When a media house is presented with an unarguable, automated log of exactly how many times they played a creator’s track, their legal ground to resist completely evaporates,” Subedi said.
In May 2026, Nepal’s Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation formed an inquiry committee to look into issues related to music royalties, copyright and intellectual property. Among the members of the committee are the director general of the Department of Information and Broadcasting, the registrar of the Nepal Copyright Office and the chief of the Archaeology and Heritage Section under the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation.
Lastly, Subedi said there should be collaborative public awareness. He emphasized that enforcement works best when paired with education and suggested that MRCSN collaborate with the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry and various hotel and restaurant associations to run clear compliance workshops.
“The ongoing defiance boils down to three primary factors: a historical lack of accountability, deep-seated cultural misconceptions about digital music and genuine friction regarding regulatory clarity,” he said.
He revealed that for decades, local businesses have believed that background music is a free commodity. Enforcement of Nepal’s Copyright Act has historically been lax, leading many to believe that royalty compliance is not a serious overhead cost.
Regarding cultural misconceptions about digital music, Subedi explained that the digital boom has led to confusion regarding platforms like YouTube. “Many restaurant owners and gym managers argue, ‘We already pay for internet services and watch ads on YouTube, so why should we pay MRCSN again?’”
Finally, business establishments are wondering where the money actually goes. “Until businesses see absolute transparency in how collective management organizations track usage data and distribute those funds directly to lyricists, composers and performers, they will continue to view these royalty demands as an arbitrary tax rather than a legal obligation to support creators,” Subedi said.
- Espie Angelica A. de Leon
