🔍 Read the full analysis: Indonesia’s AI Copyright Bill Puts Tech Platforms On Alert on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
Google, Meta and TikTok pressed Indonesian lawmakers on November 11 to reconsider parts of a draft copyright-law revision covering news links and AI. The proposal is still under deliberation, its current text was not available for review, and no vote date has been announced.
Google, Meta and TikTok challenged parts of Indonesia’s proposed copyright-law revision at a parliamentary hearing in Jakarta on November 11, focusing on provisions that could require payments for showing news links and set conditions for AI training. The bill remains under deliberation, and the version lawmakers are reviewing has not been made available for independent examination.
The revision would amend Indonesia’s Copyright Law No. 28 of 2014. Parliament approved it as an initiative in a plenary session on March 12, 2026; it is now being considered by the House Legislation Body, known as Baleg, together with the government. According to Kompas, lawmakers heard from the three technology companies, the Press Council and Satu Lisensi Indonesia on November 11.
The companies’ objections differ. Google opposes payment obligations for news links and snippets, a single collective licensing body and mandatory licenses covering AI training data. It has also argued for retaining intermediary safe-harbor protections. Meta’s position, as described in the source reporting, is that sharing a link is not the same as republishing an article and that payment duties could reduce publishers’ traffic and revenue. TikTok says disclosure rules should not apply when AI is used only to assist a person, and also wants safe-harbor protection retained.
The full text currently under discussion was unavailable, and reports refer to different versions. The bill’s provisions and article numbering may have changed since a draft reported in July. The companies’ statements are arguments made during the debate, not established assessments of the draft’s effects.
AI copyright bill puts platforms on alert
Google, Meta and TikTok challenged parts of Indonesia’s draft copyright revision at a November 11 hearing. The bill remains under deliberation, and its current text is not available for review.
What the platforms challenged
Their objections cover news payments, AI rules and protections for online intermediaries.
Links and AI licenses
Opposes payment duties for links and snippets, a single licensing body, and mandatory licenses for AI training data.
Linking is not republication
Argues that payment duties could reduce publisher traffic and revenue.
Human-assisted AI
Says disclosure rules should not apply when AI only assists a person.
The stakes for news and creators
The rules could shape how journalism reaches audiences and how copyrighted work is licensed for AI.
- Payment rules for aggregation or link previews could change how platforms distribute news.
- Google warned it could stop crawling, indexing and distributing Indonesian news; this is a company claim, not a confirmed outcome.
- Licensing rules could affect compensation, attribution and control over work used in AI systems.
- The Press Council cited platform advertising and referral figures at the hearing; the source material gives no measurement basis.
What remains unsettled
The July draft is not confirmation of what lawmakers are considering now.
The version under discussion was unavailable, and reports refer to different drafts.
Fair use, human involvement, opt-outs and licensing arrangements remain unclear.
Baleg and the government are deliberating; no vote date has been announced.
A New Test for News and AI
The bill could affect how platforms distribute Indonesian journalism and how AI developers obtain and use copyrighted material. If enacted with payment requirements for aggregation, indexing or link previews, it could change the economics of how news reaches audiences online. Google warned lawmakers that a levy on links could lead it to stop crawling, indexing and distributing Indonesian news. That is the company’s stated position; it is not a confirmed outcome.
There is also a direct dispute over who should receive compensation and how rights are managed. The draft reported in July envisaged payments routed through state-supervised collective management organisations. Google favors voluntary, market-based arrangements instead. For creators and publishers, the eventual rules could shape licensing revenue, attribution and control over work used in AI systems. The unresolved detail matters: broad requirements could affect a wide range of material, while narrower rules might apply only to specific uses.
The Press Council presented a contrasting account of the current market. Deputy chair Totok Suryanto 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 attributed to the council at the hearing; the material does not provide their measurement period or calculation basis. They should not be read as independently verified measures of the proposed law’s effects.
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From July Draft to Hearing
Reuters reported the draft’s AI provisions on July 17, citing a bill version that law ministry official Hermansyah Siregar confirmed was authentic. Siregar said the text was not final. He described generative AI as having disrupted the copyright framework and said the proposal would explicitly recognize AI in Indonesian copyright law.
As reported in July, the draft would bar AI from imitating a creator’s distinctive style, require disclosure of AI use, and protect AI-assisted works only if they met a human-involvement threshold. Fully AI-generated works would not qualify for that protection. The draft did not specify how much human contribution would be enough. It also proposed that copyrighted works used to train AI be governed by fair-use provisions or licensing agreements, alongside payments tied to certain uses of news content. These are descriptions of the earlier draft, not confirmation that each provision remains in the current text.
The proposal follows Presidential Regulation No. 32 of 2024, which requires digital platforms to support quality journalism. At the November hearing, Suryanto said the regulation had not worked as intended and that compliance was low, according to Aktual. The new bill would address copyright law directly, but its final scope and relationship to existing rules remain unsettled.
“A levy on links would leave Google “no choice” but to stop crawling, indexing and distributing Indonesian news.”
— Google representative Agung Pamungkas, as reported by Reuters
Key Draft Details Remain Unsettled
It is not clear which provisions from the July draft remain in the version Baleg is considering. The full current text was unavailable, and the source reports describe differences between versions. As a result, proposed rules on style imitation, AI disclosure, human contribution, training licenses and payments for news links cannot all be treated as settled language.
Other central questions are open, including how any human-involvement threshold would be measured, what uses of copyrighted work would qualify as fair use, how opt-outs might work and whether one licensing body would be required. The source material also provides no announced date for a parliamentary vote. Company warnings about reduced access, traffic or investment remain claims about possible consequences, not confirmed results.
Parliament Continues the Review
Baleg and the government are continuing deliberations on the bill. The November 11 hearing brought platform companies and press-sector representatives into the discussion, but the source material does not report an agreed revision, final text or vote schedule.
The next concrete development will be the publication or confirmation of the text lawmakers intend to advance, followed by any further parliamentary review and a vote. Until that happens, readers should treat the July provisions as an earlier draft and the companies’ statements as positions in an ongoing policy debate—not as final legal requirements.
Key Questions
Has Indonesia passed the AI copyright bill?
No. The draft is still being deliberated by parliament’s Legislation Body and the government. No vote date was reported in the source material.
What did the technology companies object to?
Google challenged payments for news links and snippets, a single licensing body and mandatory AI-training licenses. Meta argued that linking is not republishing and could affect publisher traffic. TikTok said disclosure should not apply when AI only assists a person. The companies also raised safe-harbor concerns.
Would the bill require payment for news links?
An earlier draft reported in July proposed compensation for certain forms of news aggregation, republication and link previews. Google referred to payment requirements for indexing and snippets at the November hearing, but the current draft text was not available, so the final scope is unclear.
What AI rules appeared in the earlier draft?
The July version described by Reuters included disclosure of AI use, a restriction on imitating a creator’s distinctive style, a human-contribution test for protection of AI-assisted work and fair-use or licensing provisions for training data. Those details may have changed and are not confirmed as final.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
