Law Minister Pledges to Protect Journalistic Copyright from AI Crawling

Indonesia’s law minister has pledged stronger protection for journalistic copyright as artificial intelligence systems scrape and reuse media content at speed, Kompas reported, citing remarks delivered at an ASEAN forum in Bali. Minister of Law Supratman Andi Agtas said technology must advance without erasing the value of human-created works, and that journalists and newsrooms need legal certainty plus a fair share of the economic return.

Speaking at the ASEAN Forum on the Protection of Journalistic Works in the Copyright Regime in the Digital Era, Supratman argued that stories now travel across borders instantly, which complicates licensing, distribution and commercial use. He said Indonesia is pushing regional cooperation on three fronts: transparency about how works are used, fair and proportionate remuneration, and cross-border systems that can manage rights and data interoperability.

Press Council chairman Komaruddin Hidayat warned that platforms capture attention, data and advertising value while reporters who investigate reality often see little of the upside. Fifi Aleyda Yahya, a director general at the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs, added that platforms and AI systems must respect creators’ rights and make information sources clear when they reuse journalism.

What it means in practice

The Bali forum does not by itself rewrite Indonesia’s copyright statute, but it raises the political temperature around training data and news licensing just as Komdigi finalises a national AI roadmap and sector rules. It also sits beside the One Data Indonesia law covering AI and data sovereignty and Komdigi’s safety-by-design stance that still wants sector-specific rules rather than a blanket slowdown.

For publishers, the near-term levers are licensing talks, crawler blocks and ASEAN coordination; for model builders, the risk is that opaque scraping becomes a diplomatic as well as a legal liability. Newsrooms will watch whether remuneration schemes are voluntary codes or binding rules with audits.

What to watch: whether Jakarta tables concrete opt-in or licensing text for AI training on news, how ASEAN partners align on remuneration, and whether major platforms publish crawler and training disclosures for Indonesian outlets.