• Shrishti Mallick
• Dr. Pragya Chaurasia

Copyright enforcement in India is formally grounded in a robust statutory framework Sections 55, 62, and 63 of the Copyright Act, 1957 provide civil and criminal remedies, and the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 creates a dedicated forum for commercial intellectual property disputes. Yet the practical accessibility of these remedies for individual screenwriters, lyricists, composers, and independent creators in India’s media and entertainment sector is severely constrained. Employing a doctrinal methodology supplemented by comparative analysis of enforcement models in the United Kingdom and the United States, this paper argues that the cost of copyright enforcement encompassing ad valorem court fees under the Court Fees Act, 1870, professional legal costs, and the opportunity costs of protracted litigation operates as a structural deterrent to enforcement by individual creators and small rights-holders. This deterrent is compounded by the dissolution of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board in 2021 and the consequent absence of a specialised, accessible forum for copyright disputes below the High Court level. The paper applies Cappelletti and Garth’s access to justice framework to demonstrate that India’s enforcement architecture systematically advantages well-resourced institutional rights-holders over individual creators. Drawing on the United Kingdom’s Intellectual Property Enterprise Court and the United States’ Copyright Claims Board as comparative reference points, the paper proposes four targeted reforms: introduction of a copyright small-claims tribunal, revision of the court fee structure for copyright matters, mandatory pre-institution mediation with enforceable outcomes, and reinstatement of a specialist copyright forum below the High Court level.

copyright enforcement; access to justice; litigation costs; Intellectual Property Appellate Board; media and entertainment; small claims; Copyright Act 1957

"COPYRIGHT ENFORCEMENT AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE: WHY LITIGATION COSTS DETER CREATORS IN INDIA’S MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT SECTOR", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.13, Issue 9, page no.d460-d467, September-2026, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2609344.pdf

"COPYRIGHT ENFORCEMENT AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE: WHY LITIGATION COSTS DETER CREATORS IN INDIA’S MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT SECTOR", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.13, Issue 9, page no. ppd460-d467, September-2026, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2609344.pdf