ANI sues PTI for Rs. 2 crore for copyright infringement in Delhi High Court

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court issued summons to the Press Trust of India (PTI) on Friday in response to a Rs. 2 crore copyright infringement and plagiarism lawsuit filed by Asian News International (ANI) against PTI.

Justice Mini Pushkarna directed PTI to file a response and scheduled the next hearing for August 9.

ANI has accused PTI of copying its videos showing passengers on a Delhi-Darbhanga Spicejet flight suffering for almost an hour due to a malfunctioning air conditioning system. The incident took place on June 19, 2024, during a severe heat wave while the plane was on the runway.

According to ANI, its video journalist captured both long and short versions of the video from inside the flight, which were then distributed through ANI's feed and tweeted on X (Twitter). Shortly after, PTI published identical videos. ANI is seeking damages exceeding 2 crores and a permanent injunction to prevent PTI from publishing any of ANI's original works.

Senior Advocate Rajshekhar Rao, representing PTI, stated that PTI would remove the videos within 24 hours. ANI's legal team, including Senior Advocate Chander M Lall and advocate Sidhant Kumar, argued that PTI should also issue an apology and a clarification to the news outlets that published the story based on PTI's feed.

"They must take down and acknowledge that it is my work. They must apologize. They must write to all the newspapers that published the report as PTI feed. PTI has been stealing my feeds," Lall asserted.

Rao countered this claim, describing it as "the pot calling the kettle black."

"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 responded.

Although the Bench initially considered referring the two news agencies to mediation, Senior Advocate Chander M Lall (representing ANI) opposed this idea.

Consequently, the Court issued summons to PTI, and Lall mentioned that the two parties would discuss the matter.

ANI was represented by the law firm Unum Law.