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TL;DR
Indonesia’s parliament is considering a copyright-law revision that would set rules for AI and require digital platforms to compensate news publishers for uses including link previews. Google, Meta and TikTok raised objections at a Nov. 11 hearing, while press representatives argued existing platform support for journalism has fallen short. The draft is not final, and no vote date has been announced.
Google, Meta and TikTok objected to parts of Indonesia’s proposed copyright-law revision at a Nov. 11 parliamentary hearing in Jakarta, where lawmakers heard arguments on payments for news content and rules for artificial intelligence. The bill remains under discussion, and its latest full text and a vote date are not publicly confirmed.
The proposal would revise Law No. 28 of 2014, Indonesia’s existing Copyright Law. Parliament approved the measure as a legislative initiative on March 12, 2026, and its Legislation Body, known as Baleg, is deliberating it with the government. Reuters reported on an earlier, July version of the draft; the text has since changed, and the version under discussion at the November hearing was not available in full.
According to Reuters’ account of that July draft, the bill would address AI-generated and AI-assisted work, including disclosure of AI use, protection for works with sufficient human involvement, imitation of a creator’s distinctive style, and the use of copyrighted material for training. It would also require platforms to compensate publishers for certain uses of news, including aggregation, republication and link previews. The earlier draft proposed state-supervised collective management organisations to distribute payments and described sanctions for non-compliance. These are proposals in a draft, not current law.
At the November hearing, Google challenged payments tied to links and snippets, a single collective licensing body and mandatory licenses for AI training data, according to reports by Reuters, Suara and Kompas. The company argued for a text-and-data-mining exception with an opt-out mechanism, such as robots.txt, and asked that platforms retain safe-harbor protections. Meta said sharing a link is not the same as republishing content and argued that payment obligations could reduce traffic and revenue for publishers. TikTok said disclosure rules should not apply when AI is used only as an assistive tool and also called for safe-harbor protection, according to the supplied reporting.
AI Copyright in Indonesia A policy dispute with big tech
Lawmakers are weighing rules for AI and payments to news publishers. The proposal is still under discussion, and its final terms remain unsettled.
What the draft could change
The proposal addresses publisher compensation and permissions for AI use of copyrighted work.
Payments to publishers
An earlier draft covered aggregation, republication and link previews.
Copyright and training
Earlier proposals addressed disclosure, human involvement, style imitation and training data.
Positions at the hearing
Companies and press representatives offered competing arguments to lawmakers.
- Google challenged link payments and mandatory AI training licenses.
- Meta argued links differ from republication; TikTok questioned disclosure for assistive AI.
- Google and TikTok called for safe-harbor protections.
- Dewan Pers said platform support for journalism had fallen short.
- It reported that platforms take 80% of digital advertising.
- It said news-site traffic from platforms had fallen by up to 70%.
What remains unsettled
The latest full draft text was not publicly confirmed in the supplied reporting.
Baleg is deliberating the proposal with the government.
Payment duties, AI rules and safeguards could be revised.
The proposal is not law, and the final effects remain uncertain.
How the Bill Could Reshape News and AI
The proposal puts two contested questions in the same legislative debate: how platforms should compensate journalism and what permissions AI developers need to use copyrighted material. If enacted, the rules could affect news discovery, publishers’ income, the licensing market and the availability of Indonesian-language material for AI training. The final effect would depend on the wording of the law and how regulations and licensing arrangements are implemented.
At the hearing, Dewan Pers, Indonesia’s Press Council, offered a competing account of the current balance between platforms and publishers. It told lawmakers that platforms take 80 percent of digital advertising and that traffic from platforms to news sites has fallen by up to 70 percent, according to the source material. Those figures were presented by the press body; their measurement periods and comparison bases were not specified in the material available. The council also said a 2024 regulation requiring platforms to support quality journalism had not worked as intended and that compliance was low.
The dispute matters beyond Indonesia because the bill would set a national approach to issues that governments and courts elsewhere are also confronting: whether linking or displaying excerpts triggers payment, how rights holders can license works for AI training, and how to distinguish human-created work from AI-assisted output. The companies’ objections and the press sector’s arguments are positions in the policy debate, not findings established by the hearing.
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From 2024 Journalism Rules to Copyright Reform
Indonesia already has a policy requiring digital platforms to support quality journalism. Presidential Regulation No. 32 of 2024 set that obligation, but Dewan Pers deputy chair Totok Suryanto told lawmakers that platform compliance was low and the regulation had not achieved its intended effect, according to Aktual. The proposed copyright revision would add a separate legal framework for platform payments and AI-related copyright questions.
The AI provisions first drew international attention in July, when Reuters reported on a draft and quoted Hermansyah Siregar, a law ministry official overseeing intellectual property. Siregar confirmed the draft was authentic but said it was not final. Reuters described the proposal as Indonesia’s first explicit recognition of AI in its copyright law. The November hearing brought Google, Meta and TikTok before Baleg alongside the Press Council and Satu Lisensi Indonesia, a licensing body, according to Kompas.
Google’s representative also warned that a levy on links could leave the company with “no choice” but to stop crawling, indexing and distributing Indonesian news, Reuters reported. That statement describes the company’s stated response to a possible rule; it does not establish that Google has decided to withdraw those services.
““The development of generative AI has disrupted the copyright framework.””
— Hermansyah Siregar, a law ministry official overseeing intellectual property, speaking to Reuters in July
Key Draft Language Remains Unsettled
The current bill text is not available in full in the reporting provided, and the July draft described by Reuters has changed. Reports refer to provisions and article numbers in different versions, so the precise scope of payment duties, AI rules and sanctions cannot yet be established from the available material.
The draft’s earlier account did not specify how much human contribution would be needed for an AI-assisted work to qualify for copyright protection. It is also unclear how the bill would define distinctive style, how disclosure duties would work in practice, or what would count as a workable licensing or fair-use framework for training data. The positions presented by the companies and press representatives remain arguments to lawmakers, not settled interpretations of enacted law.
No parliamentary vote date has been announced in the source material. It is also unclear whether the government and Baleg will revise the provisions further or how any final requirements would interact with existing platform and copyright rules.
Lawmakers Continue Clause-by-Clause Review
Baleg is continuing deliberations with the government after hearing from technology companies, the Press Council and licensing representatives on Nov. 11. The next developments to watch are the publication or circulation of an updated draft, any changes to the proposed rules on links and AI training, and the scheduling of a parliamentary vote. No vote date has been announced in the available reporting.
Until the text is settled and approved, the proposed obligations should not be treated as rules already in force. Further hearings or amendments could clarify how publishers would receive compensation, whether a collective licensing body would be required, and how rights holders could opt out of AI training use.
Key Questions
Has Indonesia passed the proposed AI copyright law?
No. The proposal is still under parliamentary deliberation with the government. The source material gives no announced vote date.
What would the bill require of digital platforms?
An earlier draft described by Reuters would require compensation for certain uses of news, including aggregation, republication and link previews, and proposed rules for copyrighted works used in AI training. The current draft has changed, so the final requirements are not yet confirmed.
What are Google, Meta and TikTok objecting to?
Google challenged payment duties for links and snippets, centralized licensing and mandatory AI-training licenses. Meta argued that linking is not republication and warned that payment duties could affect publisher traffic and revenue. TikTok said disclosure should not apply when AI merely assists and called for safe-harbor protections.
Would Google stop showing Indonesian news?
Google’s representative warned that a levy on links could leave the company with “no choice” but to stop crawling, indexing and distributing Indonesian news, Reuters reported. That was a warning, not confirmation of a withdrawal decision.
What is still unknown about the AI provisions?
The full current draft is unavailable in the source material. Details such as the threshold for human involvement in AI-assisted works, how style imitation would be defined, and how training-data licensing or exceptions would operate remain unsettled.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
