Delhi Court barred Unacademy from using news agency ANI’s videos on its YouTube channel. The court also told Google to block all such content immediately.
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NEW DELHI: A Delhi court passed an important legal order stopping online education company Unacademy from using video content that belongs to the news agency Asian News International (ANI).
These videos were being used without permission on the YouTube channel called ‘Pathfinder by Unacademy’.
On July 14, District Judge Hemani Malhotra of Patiala House Courts gave this ruling and asked Unacademy to remove all the videos that ANI had complained about. The court also ordered Google to make sure that these videos are taken down, blocked, and people cannot access them anymore.
The Court said in its official order:
“Defendant no.1 [Unacademy] is restrained from posting, publishing, uploading, distributing, re-publishing on any platform, or using in any manner, plaintiff’s original videos or any copyrighted work or content of the plaintiff, including on platform of Youtube maintained by defendant no.2 [Google LLC].”
This case started when ANI went to court against Unacademy, saying that it had used its videos on YouTube without taking any license, permission, or legal authorization. ANI explained that the three videos being used on the channel were their original content, and Unacademy was using them for commercial benefits without giving them any credit or payment.
ANI told the court that they invest a lot of money, people, and equipment to produce news stories. Because of this, they are the legal owners of the videos and have full rights to use them commercially.
In its legal complaint, ANI said:
“Pathfinder by Unacademy Channel, without any license or authorization copied the Original Videos of the Plaintiff, often in entirety, including all its qualitative and quantitative aspects. It is clearly exploiting the original works of the Plaintiff for its commercial gain by increasing its subscribers.”
Among the three videos in question, one is an interview with Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official. Another is an interview with Ramdev, co-founder of Patanjali, discussing the Pahalgam terror attack. The third video shows India intercepting Pakistani drones in Samba.
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After noticing the misuse, ANI filed copyright strikes on YouTube. In response, Unacademy filed a counter-claim, saying that they used the videos under ‘fair dealing’ – a legal rule that sometimes allows using copyrighted material for news discussion, especially for civil service exam preparation.
However, ANI was not satisfied with this explanation and went to court asking for a permanent and mandatory order (injunction) and also demanded Rs 5 lakh as damages. ANI accused Unacademy of copyright infringement, piracy, plagiarism, and making unfair profits using ANI’s content.
- Advocate Anshika Saxena from Unum Law represented ANI
- Advocate Himani Sachdeva appeared for Google.
CASE TITLE:
ANI Media Pvt. Ltd. Vs. Pathfinder By Unacademy & Anr.
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