Anti-Circumvention Laws and Consumer Fair Use: Evaluating Reform Needs in India’s Copyright Governance

The increasing reliance on technological protection measures (TPMs) has transformed copyright enforcement from a rights-based adjudicatory system into a technologically embedded control architecture. In India, Section 65A of the Copyright Act, 1957, introduced through the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, criminalises circumvention of effective technological measures. While enacted to comply with obligations under the WIPO Copyright Treaty, the provision creates interpretive uncertainty regarding its interaction with statutory fair dealing exceptions under Section 52. This paper critically evaluates whether India’s anti-circumvention framework adequately preserves lawful consumer uses or risks allowing technological controls to override legislative limitations. Through doctrinal analysis, comparative evaluation of the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the European Union Information Society Directive, and constitutional examination under Article 19(1)(a), this study argues that although the “intent to infringe” requirement narrows liability, the absence of explicit harmonisation with fair dealing creates chilling effects. The paper concludes that targeted statutory reform grounded in proportionality and constitutional balance is necessary to ensure coherence in India’s digital copyright governance.