'Humans of New York' calls out 'Humans of Bombay' for filing copyright case against another page

The founder of 'Humans of New York', Brandon Stanton, has accused 'Humans of Bombay', a well-known platform that shares photo-based stories, of copying its storytelling format. This comes after "Humans of Bombay" filed a lawsuit against another Indian platform, 'People of India' for alleged copyright infringement.

The sequence of events commenced when Humans of Bombay initiated legal action in the Delhi High Court this month. They sought an injunction to prevent People of India, an Instagram-based storytelling platform, from using their content. Humans of Bombay specifically highlighted a particular story and alleged that People of India is essentially an identical platform with identical content to their own.

Humans of Bombay stated that they conduct extensive research and actively reach out to individuals who are inclined to share their stories. Subsequently, these narratives are transformed into audio-video content and disseminated across the multiple platforms associated with Humans of Bombay.

Last Wednesday, the Delhi High Court issued summons to People of India based on the lawsuit.

Stanton, the founder of 'Humans of New York', addressed the lawsuit filed by 'Humans of Bombay' on Saturday via X (formerly known as Twitter).

"I have stayed quiet on the appropriation of my work because I think Humans Of Bombay shares important stories, even if they've monetised far past anything I'd feel comfortable doing on HONY. But you can't be suing people for what I've forgiven you for," Stanton wrote.

Following this, Karishma Mehta, the founder of Humans of Bombay, found herself embroiled in a social media backlash. Indian users accused her of replicating the format of Humans of New York and subsequently taking legal action against another Indian platform for copyright infringement.

The Mumbai-based company published an open letter addressed to Stanton, calling it a “cryptic assault on our efforts to protect our intellectual property". Moreover, the letter elaborated on the matter by providing information about the lawsuit.

https://x.com/HumansOfBombay/status/1705616753940902288?s=20

"We are grateful to HONY (‘Humans of New York’) and Brandon for starting this storytelling movement. The suit is related to the IP in our posts & not about storytelling at all. We tried to address the issue amicably before approaching the Court, as we believe in protecting our team’s hard work," Humans of Bombay wrote on X.

Mehta started Humans of Bombay in 2014 as a Facebook page.