Asia Business Law Journal – November/December 2025

Battle lines

AI scraping tests copyright across Asia

As the year ends, legal battles between Asian media companies and AI developers have intensified over copyright. AI technologies such as ChatGPT have become mainstream, and publishers face an existential threat with their articles being “scraped” and used to train AI systems with no compensation or attribution.

Our Cover story, titled Scraping by with AI, explores how media companies are grappling with intellectual property theft, lost attribution and reputational damage from inaccurate AI output based on their content.

Major lawsuits spread across Asia. Japanese newspapers have started suing Perplexity AI, South Korean broadcasters have challenged Naver, and India’s ANI has taken on OpenAI. However, proving copyright infringement remains difficult, especially for smaller publishers lacking the resources to trace how their content was used in AI training.

Singapore and Japan offer text mining exceptions that may protect AI companies, while Australia explicitly rejected such protections. Media companies are exploring solutions such as collective licensing organisations, technical barriers such as enhanced paywalls and defensive strategies shifting to commercial partnerships with AI developers. As the industry awaits court decisions, these battles will determine whether and how the media adapts to the AI revolution.

Rewriting the China playbook centres on China as it overhauls its arbitration laws for the first time in nearly 30 years. The reforms aim to make China a more trusted venue for cross-border disputes, codifying longstanding problems that have left companies struggling to enforce court rulings abroad.

The revised Arbitration Law seeks to rebrand China’s arbitration system. Companies gain new flexibility through ad hoc arbitration in free-trade zones. Businesses can apply for asset freezing and evidence preservation before arbitration even begins, and crucially, the “seat of arbitration” principle has been adopted.

The Asia-specific series features a Q&A with Arlene Lapuz-Ureta, the Asia-Pacific Corporate Counsel Alliance’s former president and current secretary-general. As she passes leadership to Indonesia’s Seradesy Sumardi, Lapuz-Ureta leaves behind a legacy of regional connection and an elevated global presence for Asia-Pacific corporate counsel.

Lapuz-Ureta discusses how she expanded the alliance from six to eight member associations, adding Thailand and Japan, and identifies key challenges for Asia-Pacific in-house counsel, including keeping pace with regulatory changes across multiple jurisdictions, integrating AI and legal technology, managing ESG (environmental, social and governance) expectations and handling geopolitical risks affecting cross-border operations.

This issue’s Expert briefing looks at Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, navigating three key mechanisms for tightening cross-border semiconductor controls, including enhanced export restrictions, strengthened national security protections for specific critical technologies and new outbound investment screening requirements.

The issue includes two Regional guide packages. The first, covering anti-bribery and corruption, provides a regional snapshot of tightening laws, enforcement and compliance in China, Hong Kong, India and Taiwan.

In our Head-to-head series, we present a comparison of laws controlling litigation landscapes in India and Taiwan. While India expands its dispute resolution options through arbitration and regulatory changes, Taiwan streamlines its court processes with new fees and mandatory mediation. Our capital markets series offers insights on market reforms, investor activity and fundraising trends shaping investment ecosystems in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

We are also proud to present our Philippine Law Firm Awards 2025 and Korea Law Firm Awards 2025, recognising each jurisdiction’s leading firms for excellence over the year. Law Firm of the Year awards go to ACCRALAW in the Philippines and Shin & Kim in South Korea.

Seven standout firms in the Philippines and five in South Korea are also recognised as Best Overall Law Firms. Additional awards include Best Boutique Firm and Best New Law Firm in both countries, Best Foreign Law Firms in South Korea and other highlight awards across both jurisdictions. Congratulations to all the winners.

Finally, the Vietnam A-List showcases the top 100 lawyers plus 12 Legal Icons in the country for 2025. This list is compiled by the independent research team of Asia Business Law Journal, based on nominations and endorsements from domestic and international clients, as well as peers worldwide.