The Delhi High Court on Wednesday strongly criticised news agency Asian News International (ANI) for directly approaching YouTube to block the channel of Dynamite News Network while its copyright infringement case was still pending before the court.
A division bench of Justice C Hari Shankar and Justice Om Prakash Shukla dismissed ANI’s appeal against a single judge’s March 21 order directing YouTube to unblock the rival news platform’s channel.
“We express our displeasure in the manner the appellant has proceeded in this matter,” the bench said, adding that ANI’s approach “deserves to be deprecated.”
ANI had filed a copyright infringement suit alleging that Dynamite News uploaded several of its videos without authorisation. On March 21, 2024, Dynamite News told the single judge that nine such videos had been mistakenly uploaded by a staff member and undertook to take them down. It also assured the court that it would not reproduce ANI’s content in the future.
Following this assurance, the single judge directed YouTube to unblock Dynamite News’ channel.
However, the matter resurfaced in October when Dynamite News informed the single judge that ANI had approached YouTube again—this time with a list of URLs uploaded before the March 21 order—alleging copyright violations and seeking another blocking of the channel.
Dynamite News argued that ANI’s move amounted to overreaching the court’s earlier order since the agency had bypassed the court and directly contacted YouTube.
The single judge then directed YouTube to unblock the channel again, prompting ANI to appeal the order before the division bench.
The bench noted that ANI failed to approach the single judge before contacting YouTube, even though litigation between the parties was ongoing. “The manner in which ANI managed to get the March 21 order reversed and get the respondent’s YouTube channel once again blocked by directly approaching YouTube… deserves to be deprecated,” the court observed.
It also pointed out that the disputed videos had already been unblocked by YouTube and saw no merit in ANI’s appeal, dismissing it in limine as “completely unjustified.”
ANI’s counsel urged the court to limit its remarks so they wouldn’t be cited in other copyright cases involving the agency. The bench declined, saying it could not “bind the hands of other courts.”
The judges added that if any new infringing clips were uploaded by a third party, that would constitute a separate issue, and the court could not issue any pre-emptive directions on that front.
