Indonesia's copyright rewrite puts Google, AI platforms on ...

Indonesia's latest copyright gambit is a masterclass in regulatory theatre. The draft law grants copyright to anyone who prompts an AI into existence, essentially creating a new class of 'creator' whose contribution is typing 'write me a poem about durians in the style of Pramoedya.' The bill also bans using AI to imitate a creator's 'distinctive style' — a phrase so legally nebulous that it's essentially a full-employment guarantee for copyright lawyers. Because nothing says 'clear intellectual property framework' like asking courts to adjudicate what constitutes 'distinctive style' in an era where five billion people have access to the same generative models.

The mandatory disclosure requirement is the cherry on top. The bill demands that content made with AI be labelled, which sounds sensible until you realise that enforcement would require policing every Instagram caption, every blog post, every WhatsApp forward. Indonesia's internet users are among the most active in the world; good luck getting them to comply. And let's not forget the real target: Google and other AI platforms, who will now face a patchwork of national copyright laws that make the EU's GDPR look like a children's colouring book.

What we're seeing is the latest example of governments trying to squeeze the AI balloon into a pre-digital legal framework. Granting copyright to AI-assisted work doesn't solve the underlying problem — it just creates more confusion. The 'distinctive style' clause is particularly rich: it assumes that artistic 'style' is a fixed, registrable asset, like a trademark for your soul. Indonesia will pass this law, Google will spend millions on compliance, and the only winners will be the law firms advising both sides. As usual.