October 23, 2025 | 03:32 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Chairperson of the Digital and Sustainability Commission of the Press Council, Dahlan Dahi, suggests that journalistic products should be categorized as legally protected works to mitigate the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
"The solution is to place journalistic work as a work protected by the law," Dahlan said in a written statement on Wednesday, October 22, 2025.
Dahlan made this statement at the Indonesia Digital Conference (IDC) 2025, an annual event organized by the Indonesian Association of Cyber Media (AMSI) under the theme 'Sovereign AI: Towards Digital Independence.'
Threat to Media Economics
Dahlan highlighted the current phenomenon where AI takes journalistic content for free as raw material for its platforms, even though media outlets incur significant capital costs to produce the news.
He warned that this situation could threaten the media industry, as news would effectively lose its economic value, making the existence of journalists insignificant.
In addition to the issue of AI, Dahlan also pointed out the problem of numerous content creators who exploit news from media sources for free and then monetize it on social media.
Unfortunately, Dahlan noted, no regulation currently exists that requires these content creators to pay licensing fees to the media. Such licensing revenue is essential for media outlets to diversify their income in addition to traditional advertising.
Research Reveals Scale of the Problem
The General Chairperson of AMSI, Wahyu Dhyatmika, provided supporting data, stating that research conducted among the association's members revealed that nearly 30 percent of visits to media sites originate from AI crawler bots, which extract content without payment.
Wahyu also shared findings from a joint AMSI and Monash University study on the digital media landscape in Indonesia, which showed that about 75 percent of content innovation occurs in the downstream sector (distribution and formatting). Meanwhile, innovation in the upstream sector, such as storytelling techniques, news formats, and data journalism, remains relatively low.
Wahyu further explained that the threat to the media business's sustainability now stems not only from AI but also from a sharp decline in advertising revenue due to low website visits and diminishing opportunities for other advertising sources.
According to an AMSI survey, Wahyu noted that 80 percent of media revenue currently comes from the government, making media outlets highly vulnerable if government advertising spending is reduced.
The Indonesia Digital Conference this year emphasizes the importance of sovereignty and independence for the media industry as it navigates the wave of AI-based digital transformation.
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