Industry
Indonesian publishers and the licensing question, explained
Why the conversation has shifted from "should we block crawlers" to "what does a fair compensation model even look like" in twelve months.
Twelve months ago, the dominant question among Indonesian publishers was technical: how do we block the crawlers? Today the dominant question is structural: what would a fair compensation model even look like?
Three things changed. First, the crawlers got harder to block — some now ignore robots.txt entirely, others rotate user agents faster than a small newsroom can keep up. Second, a handful of international precedents emerged: opt-out registries, collective licensing bodies, direct deals with model providers. Third, regulators began asking publishers, in working groups, what they actually want.
The current debate centres on three models. A statutory levy with collective distribution; a direct-deal regime that favours the largest publishers; or a hybrid in which a small floor is statutory and the ceiling is negotiated.
None of the three is obviously right for the Indonesian market. We will follow this carefully — and would welcome contributions from publishers, lawyers, and policy researchers willing to share their reasoning on the record.
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