Discuss how provisions of the India-EU Free Trade Agreement's IP Chapter could affect India's existing copyright flexibilities. Suggest safeguards India should negotiate.

India acceded to the WIPO "Internet Treaties" — the WCT and WPPT — on 25 September 2018 [5], while retaining wide exceptions under the Copyright Act, 1957 [6]. The India-EU FTA, concluded on 27 January 2026 [1], carries an IP chapter whose drafting could narrow that flexibility unless carefully negotiated.

How the IP chapter could affect India's copyright flexibilities

• TRIPS-plus ceiling: the chapter promises a "high level of protection and enforcement" and lists international agreements the Parties must comply with [2], potentially going beyond the room TRIPS Article 13 leaves for special-case exceptions [4].
• Selective treaty listing: the WCT is both a duty and a permission — Article 11 mandates remedies against circumventing Technological Protection Measures (TPMs), while Article 10 lets countries extend old exceptions to, and create new ones for, the digital environment [3]. Commentators have flagged that the draft National Treatment clause (Article 10.8) omits the WCT; if so, India loses its clearest textual defence for future digital exceptions.
• Users squeezed: stronger digital-lock protection can disable fair dealing for students and archivists and tighten ISP liability, since exceptions behind an untouchable lock stop working in practice.
• MFN spillover: under TRIPS Articles 3–5, an advantage given to EU nationals must extend to nationals of all WTO members [4] — a bilateral concession silently becomes India's global position.

Safeguards India should negotiate

• Restore the WCT within the National Treatment clause, and write its Agreed Statement on digital exceptions into the chapter text [3].
• Retain an explicit TPM carve-out for uses already lawful under the Copyright Act, 1957 [6].
• Preserve safe harbour for intermediaries and resist enforcement standards exceeding TRIPS.
• Secure parliamentary standing committee scrutiny of the IP chapter before ratification, using Article 253's treaty-implementation route consciously.

A trade agreement should expand markets without contracting legislative space. If India restores the WCT reference and codifies its exception-friendly reading, the FTA can serve both creative-industry growth and equitable digital access — the balance the Copyright Act has long sought.