Delhi HC bars Humans of Bombay and People of India from replicating each other's content

In its ruling on Wednesday, the Delhi High Court affirmed that storytelling platforms such as Humans of Bombay and People of India are prohibited from replicating each other's copyrighted content.

However, the court emphasised that there is no copyright protection for a mere idea.

Justice Prathiba M Singh said that copyright infringement would apply when the "expression" of an idea is duplicated or imitated.

“Both the platforms, that is Humans of Bombay and People of India, shall refrain from using each other’s copyrighted works that is, commissioned photographs, literary works such as interviews and original pieces written by their own authors, any videos that have been commissioned by themselves and the manner of presentation that has been adopted by the platforms in respect of a particular subject or individual,” the court said.

In the context of individuals' private photo collections, neither of the platforms can assert a copyright claim, said the court.

Humans of Bombay, a storytelling platform founded in 2014 by Karishma Mehta, was inspired by Brandon Stanton's Humans of New York, which preceded it by four years.

Humans of Bombay had filed a lawsuit against People of India, accusing them of appropriating their films, literary works, unique storytelling format, creative expression, and storyboard presentation.

Stanton, the founder of 'Humans of New York', addressed the lawsuit filed by 'Humans of Bombay' 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.

"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.

On October 11, Mehta took to social media and wrote that the lawsuit was not about "inspiration" but "substantial imitation".

Mehta said that Humans of Bombay's content was copied and published on another creator's page. "When the plagiarism first came to our notice, we reported it to Meta. This led to 16 of their posts being taken down as they were plagiarised.

She even tried to resolve the matter amicably. However, the People of India still didn't stop the plagiarism.

She also replied to trolls on running the platform with business objectives and said, “Humans of Bombay is a business; that’s something we have never hidden. While some may choose to monetise stories through mediums like books and subscription platforms, we have chosen to do it primarily through meaningful campaigns with partner brands.”

She wrote on Instagram that the trolls were to the extent of “bullying and a slew of personal attacks, including death and rape threats towards me, my team and my family”.