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Resty Woro Yuniar

Indonesia’s push to rewrite its copyright law for the age of artificial intelligence has opened a new front in the battle between news publishers seeking compensation for their work and technology companies warning against overreach.
At stake is who gets paid when AI systems and digital platforms use news, images, software and other copyrighted works – and how much human involvement is needed before AI-assisted output qualifies for legal protection.
Last week, the House of Representatives said it had completed a draft bill to amend the 2014 copyright law. Lawmakers are continuing deliberations despite the parliamentary recess, which runs until August 13.
The draft bill, seen by Reuters, would grant copyright protection to AI-assisted works only if they meet human involvement criteria, though it does not specify how much engagement is required.
The bill prohibits using AI to copy an individual’s “distinctive style” and requires disclosure of AI use in content. Tech platforms would also have to pay compensation for “aggregating, republishing, or link-previewing news content, as well as using it for AI training”, Reuters reported.
Under the proposal, royalties paid by digital companies would go through state-supervised collective management organisations (CMOs), which would distribute the proceeds to news publishers.

The bill covers various forms of content, including films, journalism, computer programs, video games and photography. It also expands fair use provisions to explicitly permit the use of copyrighted material for training AI models in education and research, alongside existing protections for news reporting, criticism, and commentary.
“Data scraping, news aggregation, and the use of copyrighted works for AI training are challenges faced by many countries,” said Hermansyah Siregar, director general of intellectual property at the Ministry of Law, during a focus group discussion with lawmakers on Tuesday.
“Therefore, Indonesia is studying various approaches implemented in the European Union and the United States, while maintaining the need to develop systems that align with the characteristics of the press industry and national laws.”
‘Good news’ for publishers
For Indonesian publishers, the proposed revision offers a possible answer to a problem they say has become increasingly urgent: their work is being used to power AI tools and search products with no clear route to compensation.
Digital news outlets have faced revenue pressures as tech platforms deployed automated AI crawlers to scrape their published material “without consent or compensation”, according to Wahyu Dhyatmika, CEO of Tempo Digital and chairman of the Indonesian Cyber Media Association (AMSI).
“This is good news for all media, journalists, photographers, freelancers, everyone who works in journalism in Indonesia,” Wahyu told This Week in Asia.
“We suffer a double loss. On the one hand, we produce news without compensation from AI, but we also bear the server load from the activity or queries of these AI crawler bots.”
Indonesia’s five biggest news websites lost about 40 per cent of visitors between September 2024 and November 2025 due to the rise of AI overviews on online searches, according to a recent study by AMSI and Monash University.
If passed, the new copyright law would mark “the first milestone in confirming that journalistic content is protected, making unauthorised use illegal and requiring fair compensation”, said Ari Juliano Gema, a Jakarta-based IP and entertainment lawyer.
Yulia Sri Perdani, director of collaboration at independent digital news publisher Project Multatuli, raised a different concern regarding AI’s rapid adoption.
“Much of our content relates to issues involving indigenous communities facing land conflicts or conflicts with the government,” she said. “Could certain prompts from users cause AI models to cherry-pick information from our articles … thus marginalising the indigenous communities? We realise this would be very difficult to control.”

Google warned in a June statement that the proposed “far-reaching changes” to Indonesia’s copyright law would put the country’s “forward momentum at risk”.
“Rigid, overbroad mandates, however, would harm local creators, slow innovation, and leave Indonesia as an international outlier, ultimately discouraging the investment needed to drive its digital future,” the tech giant said.
It added that the proposed compensation scheme for news publishers would “erode consumer trust, break the open internet and restrict access to vital information”.
Google said it already had “existing, successful commercial agreements with over 30 local publishers” in Indonesia for its News Showcase feature, and that websites could opt out of its AI overview on Google Search.
“Flexible, modern copyright regimes rather than rigid mandates are key to ensuring Indonesia’s digital ecosystem continues to thrive. We will continue to engage actively with the relevant ministries and urge the government to reconsider the current proposal,” the company said.
Lack of definition
Jakarta-based lawyer Ari said the bill in its current form could cause confusion as it “lacks a clear definition” to differentiate between commercial and non-commercial AI activities.
He also questioned how regulators would determine whether an AI-assisted work qualified for copyright protection.
“What is the testing like? The current provisions are too broad, too wide and not specific so implementation in the future will cause confusion,” he said.
Ari suggested AI-produced content should be eligible for copyright protection if its design bore the creator’s unique, personal characteristics, or if the creator was involved in correcting or revising the work.
He also urged lawmakers to broaden the bill’s scope to encompass text and data mining, creating a future-proof legal framework capable of adapting to evolving technologies.
“In the future, institutions like CMOs will be common as they could accommodate the interests of AI developers as well as copyright holders,” Ari said.
Establishing CMOs tailored to specific fields such as music, literature and news organisations would ensure that “small copyright holders have strong bargaining positions when they deal with companies such as Google or Meta”, he added.


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Indonesia’s AI copyright push opens new front in war over digital content

Indonesian publishers say their work is being used to power AI tools and search products without a clear route to compensation. Photo: Shutterstock

Indonesia’s copyright rewrite aims to prohibit using AI to copy an individual’s “distinctive style” and requires disclosure of AI use in content. Photo: Shutterstock

Google has warned that the proposed “far-reaching changes” to Indonesia’s copyright law would put the country’s “forward momentum at risk”. Photo: Reuters

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Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto (left), who represented the country at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Thursday, with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Photo: Xinhua

Participants queue to enter the venue during the Microsoft Build: AI Day event in Jakarta in April 2024. Indonesia aims to become a regional AI hub. Photo: EPA-EFE

Indonesia’s Batam island will be the site of a data centre project developed by Australia’s Firmus Technologies in partnership with US chipmaker Nvidia. Photo: Reuters

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Observers say the rise of AI in Indonesian academia has “altered the cost structure of dishonesty”. Photo: Reuters

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Brian Yuliarto, Indonesia’s minister of higher education, science and technology. Photo: Instagram/brian_yuliarto

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Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s social media posts welcoming the Eid holiday have instead provoked outrage for their use of an AI-generated image. Photo: AFP

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With traffic slumping, a draft bill aims to force tech giants to pay media outlets for using their journalism


With traffic slumping, a draft bill aims to force tech giants to pay media outlets for using their journalism.


Artificial intelligence (AI)

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Indonesia’s AI copyright push opens new front in war over digital content

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}With traffic slumping, a draft bill aims to force tech giants to pay media outlets for using their journalism

With traffic slumping, a draft bill aims to force tech giants to pay media outlets for using their journalism