Wholesale Reproduction Of ANI Videos On YouTube Not Fair Dealing: Delhi High Court Restraints RSY News

The Delhi High Court has held that the wholesale reproduction of ten news videos of multimedia news agency ANI on YouTube cannot be regarded as fair dealing for reporting current events when the copied material operates as a substitute for the original works.

The court directed Patna-based RSY News to take down the infringing content from all platforms, including its four YouTube channels.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, in a judgment dated September 29, 2026, permanently restrained RSY News, its proprietor, agents and others acting on its behalf from reproducing, uploading, publishing, communicating to the public, distributing or republishing ANI Media Pvt. Ltd.'s original videos or other copyrighted works without authorisation.

ANI had filed the copyright suit against RSY News, which operates through its sole proprietor Raj Kumar in Patna. RSY News runs four YouTube channels, “RSY News”, “RSY News UP”, “RSY News Delhi” and “RSY News Bihar”, which had more than four million subscribers combined when the suit was instituted.

Between August 17 and October 27, 2024, RSY News uploaded 12 videos across the channels, reproducing in whole or substantial part ten original ANI videos without a licence, permission or consent. The videos included exclusive interviews with Saayoni Ghosh, Prashant Kishor, Nayab Singh Saini and Swami Jagadguru Rambhadracharya, besides footage of Arvind Kejriwal's roadshow and Dr S. Jaishankar.

The other copied material included an interview with Rajya Sabha MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, a report on the blast near CRPF Public School in Rohini and a report concerning posters of Akhilesh Yadav's birthday.

Screenshots comparing the original and infringing videos showed that the copied frames retained ANI's logo on microphones and its on-screen graphics, while RSY News had superimposed its own mark at the top. Some frames also carried the legend “Source: ANI”. ani-rsy-704488

RSY News was served on December 2, 2024, but neither entered an appearance nor filed a written statement. It was subsequently proceeded against ex parte.

The Court held that ANI's original videos were “cinematograph films” under Section 2(f) of the Copyright Act, 1957. It noted that the videos were recorded by ANI's journalists or camerapersons for valuable consideration, at ANI's instance and using its equipment. The Court consequently held ANI to be the copyright owner under proviso (b) to Section 17.

It further held that Section 14(d) gives the copyright owner exclusive rights to make copies of a cinematograph film and communicate it to the public. Uploading the copied videos on YouTube therefore infringed ANI's exclusive rights.

The Court rejected RSY News' purported licence from Swami Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. The licence had been claimed in counter-notifications submitted to YouTube. However, RSY News neither appeared before the Court nor produced the licence despite ANI specifically denying that it had authorised Swami Entertainment to use or sub-license its works.

The Court described the defence as “fanciful and not real”.

On the fair-dealing defence, the Court held:

“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 also noted that one of the copied videos concerning Arvind Kejriwal's roadshow had been published by RSY News on the same day the original was made available to ANI's subscribers through its secure syndicated feed, nearly two months before ANI put it on YouTube. RSY News was not an ANI subscriber

The Court accordingly allowed ANI's summary judgment application and decreed the suit ex parte against RSY News. It permanently restrained RSY News and persons acting on its behalf from reproducing or otherwise exploiting ANI's copyrighted works without authorisation.

RSY News was also directed to remove the 12 identified infringing videos and any other content reproducing ANI's copyrighted works from all platforms, including its four YouTube channels, to the extent such content had not already been removed.

The Court confirmed the earlier directions against Google to take down, block and disable access to the specifically identified infringing URLs.

ANI's claim for damages and its request for a direction requiring RSY News to publicly acknowledge the infringement were declined. Its earlier request for deletion of RSY News' YouTube channels had also been given up.

For ANI: Advocate Lahar Jain.