Copyright Infringement: ANI Moves Delhi HC against PTI

The Delhi High Court summoned the news agency Press Trust of India (PTI) on Friday in a copyright infringement and plagiarism case filed by competitor Asian News International (ANI).

A single bench of Justice Mini Pushkarna was hearing the matter.

Asian News International (ANI) has approached the Delhi High Court, alleging that PTI copied its videos of passengers on a Delhi-Darbhanga Spicejet flight, who suffered for nearly an hour due to the plane’s Air Conditioning (AC) failure. The incident occurred on June 19, 2024, during a severe heat wave, when the Spicejet flight’s AC malfunctioned while the plane was on the runway.

As per ANI, its video journalism team shot both longer and shorter versions of the footage from inside the flight. As soon as these videos were sent to ANI’s feed and tweeted on X (Twitter), PTI published identical videos.

The plaintiff is also seeking damages exceeding Rs 2 crores and a permanent injunction to restrain PTI from publishing any original works of ANI.

Senior Advocate Chander M. Lall and advocate Sidhant Kumar, who represented ANI emphasized that PTI should also issue an apology and a clarification to the news publications that carried the report as a PTI feed.

Appearing for PTI, senior advocate Rajshekhar Rao agreed to remove the video within 24 hours but opposed the demand for an apology. He argued that the content was marked as third-party material and dismissed the need for further action.

“There is no apology needed. There is something more that needs to be said here… We had said that it [the video] is third-party content,” Rao stated.

Although the Bench initially considered referring the two news agencies to mediation, ANI’s counsel opposed this suggestion.

The court scheduled the case for further hearing on August 9, 2024.

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