Indonesia tells Netflix to pay 10 years of music royalties

Indonesia's national royalty agency has told Netflix to pay about 75 billion rupiah, or US$4.3 million, or risk being switched off in the country. The agency, LMKN, is the body that collects money for songwriters and performers when their work is used commercially, then passes it to them. Its secretary general, Bigi Ramadha Putra, told the South China Morning Post that Netflix has not paid a single music royalty since it started selling subscriptions here in 2016, a stretch of ten years.

The claim rests on three rules: the 2014 copyright law, a 2021 government regulation on how song and music royalties are managed, and a further rule the Law Ministry issued in 2025. "Netflix, as a digital platform conducting commercial activities in Indonesia, is required to respect copyright regulations and fulfil its obligations to rights holders," Bigi said. If the company keeps refusing, LMKN says it will take the case to the Law Ministry and the Communications and Digital Affairs Ministry and ask them to block the service. Netflix's answer does not appear in the report.

Other countries have sent similar bills. Netflix has agreed to pay music royalties it owed in South Korea, and it is facing a demand over tax on its income in Australia. What makes the Indonesian version sharper is the threat attached: cutting off a service that paying subscribers already use, to settle an argument with the company that runs it.

Why it matters

If you pay for Netflix, the worst case is losing something you already bought, so the step to watch is whether the Law Ministry actually picks the case up. For Indonesian songwriters and performers, the same case is ten years of payments that never arrived, and a win would set the number other streaming platforms are asked to pay next. The part worth following after that is where the money goes, because a collecting agency only helps musicians if it reaches them.