Why Can Scammers Access Meta's Copyright Strike Tool While Creators Are Denied? Delhi High Court Asks

The Delhi High Court has asked Meta to place on record its policy, guidelines, and eligibility criteria for access to its "Rights Manager" tool, questioning why the anti-plagiarism tool is not available to content creators with large followings while scammers appear to be getting access to it.

Rights Manager is a Meta tool that allows content creators and rights holders to identify when their original content is copied or uploaded by another person and take action against the matching content.

Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani raised the issue while hearing a suit filed by content creator and business coach Mohit Kumar over alleged fraudulent copyright strikes and extortion attempts against his account.

According to Kumar's counsel, creators with a huge following such as him were not being granted access to Rights Manager, whereas scammers appeared to be getting access to the tool. Meta told the court that it would place on record its policy, guidelines, eligibility criteria for access to the tool, and the basis for denying Kumar access.

Kumar's counsel further told the court that before the copyright strikes began, Kumar was receiving 70 to 80 million views a month. That figure has since fallen to 0.3 million.

Goel said Kumar had applied for access to Rights Manager three times but was denied each time.

He explained that the tool allows a creator to protect original content uploaded by them. If another person subsequently uploads the same or similar content, the tool detects the match and allows the person with access to decide whether to block the content or issue a copyright strike.

Goel argued that the same tool was being used by alleged scammers to trigger copyright strikes against genuine creators, while those creators were being denied access.

"There is no criteria. There is a standard response that you are, we have reviewed your account and you are not eligible for rights manager tool," Kumar's counsel said.

Meta's counsel responded that access to the tool was subject to verification. She told the court that Meta could not immediately determine whether Kumar's claim to particular content was accurate or whether another person's claim was accurate.

Justice Bhambhani questioned why creators with large followings were not being given access to the tool.

"People who have a huge following and viewership and all, they are entitled, this is like an anti-plagiarism tool, right?" the court orally observed.

"This tool then should be available to people like him, not the ones with 100 followers," the court added.

The court later remarked on the present system as "Giving the key to the robber and not to the owner of the house."

On the copyright strikes themselves, Meta submitted that after technical verification, the strikes against Kumar's account had been reversed and that his account was never suspended.