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Synopsis

The Delhi High Court has recently issued summons to an Instagram handle namely ‘People of India’ (POI) in a copyright infringement suit filed by storytelling platform ‘Humans of Bombay’ (HOB).

The suit seeks to restrain POI from appropriating the former’s “unique format of storytelling” and publishing the same to the public.

The bench of Justice Prathiba M. Singh issued notice to the defendant, “POI Social Media Private Ltd”, in Humans of Bombay Stories Private Ltd’s application for interim relief.

“In addition, ld. Counsel for the Plaintiff on the query relating to how this Court would have jurisdiction, submits that a number of subjects who were being interviewed by the Defendants are based out of Delhi. Let an affidavit to this effect be placed on record within one week. 21. List on 11th October, 2023 on top of the board”, the judge ordered.

The plaintiff HOB filed the present suit seeking an injunction restraining infringement of copyright of its copyrighted content which includes (i) plaintiff’s content, (ii) Literary works, (iii) Materials, (iv) Films and (v) creative expressions which are published on its website as also Instagram handle and YouTube channel, against the defendants-POI Social Media Pvt. Ltd. & Anr.

The plaintiff’s case was that the defendants had started an identical portal/service having identical content as that of the plaintiff by the name ‘People of India’ available on the Instagram Platform handle @officialpeopleofindia. It also contended that the defendants (POI) had replicated a large number of images and videos from the plaintiff’s platforms and had used the same on their platforms.

Counsel for the plaintiff submitted that the defendants (POI) were approaching the very same subjects who were shown on the plaintiff’s websites in order to create an imitative platform. He showed the court a comparative table of some images which showed that the defendants had completely replicated their business model as well as the stories themselves.

On perusal of the images shown by the HOB, the court said, "Prima facie, there is substantial imitation and in fact, in some cases, the photographs/images are identical or imitative".

Accordingly, the court posted the matter for hearing on October 11, 2023.

“Notice be also issued by the Registry through e-mail to the Defendants that on the next date of hearing, the interim application shall be considered for ad interim relief”, the court said in its order dated September 18.

Case Title: Humans of Bombay Stories Pvt Ltd v. POI Social Media Pvt Ltd