The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and Its Potential Impact on Indian Copyright Law and the Digital Landscape
- NLR Journal
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
By Shivansh Nayak, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Indore.
Abstract
The explosive development of digital technologies has drastically remade content creation and dissemination, while equally escalating challenges to the enforcement of traditional copyrights. To address this, the United States passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998, creating a seminal model for Internet copyright protection, most notably through its safe harbor provisions for online service providers and anti-circumvention provisions. As India charts its own growing digital economy and works to strengthen its intellectual property regime, the potential ramifications of implementing DMCA-like principles within its particular legal and socio-economic context are worth close analysis.
This paper takes on a far-reaching comparative examination of the DMCA's central principles—namely its intermediary liability bounds (safe harbors) and technological protection measure (TPM) provisions—compared to the current regime of India's Copyright Act, 1957, and Information Technology Act, 2000. It explores the subtleties of "fair use" vis-à -vis India's "fair dealing" doctrine and identifies the inherent differences that would shape any figural transplant of DMCA ideals. The study then imagines the complex effect such an application would have on India's digital landscape, looking at possible advantages such as greater certainty for online businesses and more effective copyright protection, as well as major challenges in the form of chilling effects on free speech, constraints on legitimate uses of digital content, and enforcement realities across the technologically varied infrastructure of India. Finally, the paper makes a case for a well-considered "Made in India" solution to digital copyright, which strongly promotes a balanced approach that selectively borrows suitable elements from global best practices while strongly protecting innovation, freedom of expression, and access to knowledge in alignment with India's own development context.
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