Indonesia’s planned revision to Copyright Law No. 28 of 2014 is emerging as a broader digital-era reform rather than a music-only bill, with parliamentary leaders explicitly saying that journalistic works will also be protected in the new framework. Statements from the Speaker of DPR-RI (Indonesia’s House of Representatives), Puan Maharani, and the Chair of Badan Legislasi or Baleg (a permanent body of the DPR specifically tasked with administering legislation process), Bob Hasan, show that lawmakers want the bill to strengthen the position of journalists and media companies as digital platforms, AI tools, and secondary content creators increasingly reuse news content online.
According to Puan, protection for journalistic works is being treated as a key point in the draft amendment because quality journalism must remain sustainable amid digital disruption. She also linked the bill to the larger question of platform responsibility, arguing that digital platforms should become fair partners for creators rather than merely extracting value from works without proper compensation.
Bob is also in support as he framed the issue in classic copyright terms: every work carries an exclusive right attached to its creator or owner, and that principle should also apply to journalistic output produced by media organizations. He said that reuse of journalistic works for redistribution or incorporation into other content should require prior permission from the rights holder, and that such use may also trigger a royalty obligation.
That proposed direction is significant because Indonesia’s current Copyright Law No. 28 of 2014 already recognizes exclusive rights and economic rights in copyrighted works, while also containing specific exceptions for limited quotation and reporting of actual events. The debate now is whether future amendments should make journalistic works more expressly protected in statute, especially where news content is commercially reused, aggregated, summarized, or repurposed on digital platforms.
The policy push is also tied to concern over AI and the weakening economics of the press. Dewan Pers (an independent council that oversees the freedom of the press in Indonesia) has warned that rapid AI development could erode journalism and newsroom employment, while media stakeholders in the 2026 National Press Declaration urged the state to classify journalistic works as copyrighted works and pressed digital and AI platforms to provide fair and proportionate compensation for their use. Those concerns align with earlier official remarks highlighted by national media that AI-generated summaries can reduce public access to original news sources, making legal protection and compensation mechanisms more urgent for publishers.
For the future law, the central legal question will not be whether journalism has public value, but how Indonesia balances that public value with copyright exclusivity, fair information flows, licensing, and permissible exceptions for news reporting. If the revision ultimately codifies stronger protection for journalistic works, Indonesia could move toward a clearer publisher-rights style regime in which commercial reuse by platforms, aggregators, and monetized creators requires authorization and, in some cases, payment.