Observing that wholesale reproduction of copyrighted news videos cannot be treated as “fair dealing” for reporting current events, the Delhi High Court has ruled in favour of news agency Asian News International (ANI) in its copyright infringement suit against RSY News.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav granted summary judgment in favour of ANI Media Pvt. Ltd. in its suit against RSY News over the unauthorised reproduction of the news agency's video works on four YouTube channels.

The Court noted that ten out of twelve videos uploaded by RSY News reproduced the corresponding ANI videos either in their entirety or virtually so.

It further noted that another infringing video reproduced a continuous portion of more than five minutes of an ANI video.

The Court said that by uploading the said videos on its YouTube channels, RSY News had copied ANI's cinematograph films and communicated them to the public, both being acts within the exclusive domain of the news agency.

Justice Kaurav noted that the only justification ever put forward by RSY News was a “purported licence” from one Swami Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. asserted in its counter-notifications on the YouTube platform.

It observed that existence of such a licence lay within the knowledge of RSY News, which, despite service, had neither appeared before the Court nor produced the same. It added that such a defence was fanciful and not real.

“Nor can the use be regarded as fair dealing for the reporting of current events under Section 52(1)(a)(iii) of the Copyright Act. The wholesale reproduction of ten videos operates as a substitute for the plaintiff's works,” the Court said.

ANI had claimed copyright over ten original videos, which included interviews with politicians and public figures, recordings of political events and news reports. RSY News allegedly uploaded twelve videos between August and October 2024, reproducing the ANI content without any licence or permission.

The Court took note of frame-wise comparisons placed on record by ANI. It observed that the infringing videos retained ANI's logo on microphones and on-screen graphics, while RSY News' mark was superimposed at the top of the frames. Some frames also carried the words “Source: ANI”, it noted.

For context, ANI had invoked YouTube's copyright protection mechanism, following which the platform removed the infringing videos. In 2024, a coordinate bench had subsequently granted an ex parte interim injunction restraining RSY News from using ANI's copyrighted works and directed YouTube to take down, block and disable access to the infringing videos.

RSY News, despite being served with the suit, neither entered appearance nor filed a written statement and was proceeded against ex parte.

Closing the suit, the Court concluded that RSY News had “no real prospect of successfully defending the claim” and that there was no compelling reason for the matter to proceed to trial.

Holding that ANI was the owner of copyright in the original videos, the Court permanently restrained RSY News, its proprietors, partners, directors, officers, agents and persons acting on its behalf from reproducing, uploading, publishing, communicating to the public, distributing or otherwise exploiting ANI's original videos or other copyrighted works without authorisation.

It also directed RSY News to remove the twelve infringing videos from all platforms, including its four YouTube channels—RSY News, RSY News UP, RSY News Delhi and RSY News Bihar.

It also made as absolute the directions given to Google LLC, which operates YouTube, to take down, block and disable access to the identified infringing URLs.

However, the Court declined ANI's prayer seeking a public acknowledgment from RSY News that it had illegally reproduced its videos, as well as its claim for damages of Rs. 2 crore.