New Delhi: ANI, India’s top video news clip service with a turnover of Rs 88.74 crore in FY24, has gone into overdrive defending its business tactic of obtaining sums of money from individual YouTubers in the name of penalties and licenses after first accusing them of lifting copyrighted material.

On May 19, The Collective first reported how ANI was negotiating with YouTubers to remove the threat of their YouTube channels being shut down for alleged copyright violations. At the time, ANI remained silent on the quantum of money it was demanding from YouTubers to let their work survive online.

The public revelation of ANI's negotiations with YouTubers triggered public outrage against the news agency’s tactics from several quarters, particularly the online creator community.

ANI filed a suit in the Delhi High Court against a YouTuber, Mohak Mangal, who had released a video terming ANI’s tactics ‘extortionist’. His video was followed by many other creators and citizens using similar words to characterise ANI’s methods. While the court continues to hear the matter, in its first hearing, it asked Mohak to delete sections of his video that characterised ANI’s business methods negatively.

The Collective found that ANI, in this suit, for the first time, has disclosed that it has charged up to Rs 45 lakh from creators whose channels it has put on death row with copyright strikes on YouTube.

The complete terms of such contracts were revealed by ANI in its petition before the court. ANI shared two contract agreements it had signed with YouTubers, one in May 2025 and another in October 2024, suggesting ANI has been using this method to cut secret deals with YouTubers for a while now. It did not reveal the names of the YouTubers who had signed these contracts.

The contracts ban YouTubers from sharing the terms of the deal with anyone. The contract provisions read: “Any demonstrable leakage of the terms will lead to immediate termination of this agreement…”

In case the YouTuber reveals the details of the contract she or he would be liable to pay ANI up to the full price of the contract as damages, the contract lays down. 

Subsequently, ANI’s Editor in Chief Smita Prakash in her podcast justified rates charged by ANI, claiming to be arbitrary by creators, “People are misrepresenting…(ANI’s rates) there are multiple usages of ANI content that creators have done.” 

How it began

On May 19, The Collective discovered that ANI weaponised YouTube’s copyright policy to get creators into signing expensive licensing deals. The method was simple: ANI would first issue multiple back-to-back “copyright strikes” against the creator. YouTube’s policy dictates that more than three copyright strikes against a channel within 90 days will lead to the channel being permanently shut down. The owner of the channel is also banned from the platform for good. This would weaken the YouTuber’s negotiating position. 

ANI pushed numerous creators into expensive licensing deals. The latter negotiated with a sword hanging over their entire work hosted on YouTube. YouTube, holding a monopoly in content creation, offered no protection to the creators on its platform. Consequently, many creators signed deals with ANI to keep their channels alive.

After reporting by The Collective, YouTuber Mohak Mangal became the first to publicly speak against ANI. In his video titled “Dear ANI,” Mohak was the first to call ANI’s business tactics extortionist. On May 29, the newswire filed for permanent removal of Mohak’s video from YouTube in the Delhi High Court, along with seeking damages for disparaging ANI’s trademark and name. After the first hearing, Mohak edited his video to remove direct allusions describing ANI's tactics as "Hafta Vasooli" or extortionate. Tweets by several prominent internet personalities disparaging ANI or circulating Mohak’s video have also been deleted from platform X, per the Delhi High Court’s interim order. The next hearing on the matter is set for July 21.

While Mohak deleted parts of his video upon the instructions of the court, since then, YouTuber Ramit Verma, who goes by the handle ‘Official PeeingHuman’ on YouTube, has also publicly come out, describing ANI's tactics in the same terms. “Last year when ANI had put 12 copyright strikes against my channel, YouTube had rejected all of them because it comes under fair use….at that time I had not given ANI the opportunity to threaten and scare me into giving them money,” he said in his facetiously titled video, ‘ANI apologises to YouTubers (Finally?)’. 

The Collective has extensively reported on Ramit’s run-in with ANI as well. Last year when ANI issued 14 copyright strikes against the content creator, YouTube stepped in to protect Ramit’s use of ANI clips under fair use. At the time, YouTube sought further information from ANI regarding their consideration of fair use exceptions when they requested the platform to strike down Ramit's videos. YouTube was not satisfied with ANI’s response and declined to uphold ANI’s copyright strike. This is the only case that we were able to find where the platform extended protections to creators. 

We sent detailed questions to ANI and YouTube. The latter did not respond. 

ANI, in its response, said, “ANI has instituted multiple court proceedings before various courts where required in terms of the copyright protection policy issued by YouTube. The evidence of filing these legal proceedings has been furnished to YouTube as required. In fact…We would not like to comment on any matters that are pending in court or likely to be heard in court imminently.”

ANI also shared a list of five court proceedings it had instituted on the matter of trademark protection as well as copyright infringement between 2022 and 2025. Three of these cases were filed against individuals and organisations with YouTube channels, with ANI citing copyright infringement and plagiarism of its content in videos shared on those channels. YouTubers or owners of YouTube channels named by ANI in their response to The Collective were, Akram Khan, owner of Dhaakad Khabar YouTube Channel, Dynamite News Network Private Limited and RSY News. 

In addition to these, ANI also shared a copyright infringement court proceeding it instituted against its competitor, the Press Trust of India (PTI), in the Delhi High Court in 2024. The shared document did not disclose the specific allegations ANI had made against PTI.

Our questions to YouTube and ANI, along with the latter's complete response can be read at the end of the story. 

The Collective checked the background of the three cases shared by ANI with us, where they have instituted court proceedings against copyright infringement on their YouTube channels. These entities offer news closer to the format of traditional TV news channels or websites. Their content differs from that of satirists or commentators such as Mohak Mangal. ANI did not share any documents about court cases filed against those whose work would be characterised as satire or commentary. 

In the case of RSY News, ANI had stated in its case that the entity was not in the business of commentary. 

“It is submitted that the infringing videos do not constitute fair use, as defendant no.1 is neither reviewing nor criticising the original videos,” ANI’s petition reads. 

What next?

This month, ANI has also filed one additional case against Mohak in the Patiala House Court. This is in direct response to Mohak’s counter notification against ANI’s copyright strikes on YouTube. 

According to YouTube’s policy, a creator can contest these death row copyright strikes by filing a ‘counter notification’ contesting the content owner’s claim that the creator is violating their copyright. 

After this, YouTube throws the ball in the content owner’s court. Within 10 days, they have to produce evidence that they are taking legal action against the content creator. Once the matter reaches the courts, YouTube removes the strikes but also removes the contested video from the platform until the court’s final verdict. 

So far, The Collective knows of at least three cases filed by ANI against creators in the Patiala Court for copyright violation. 

In two of these cases, creators claim that they have not received formal notice from the court and therefore cannot be certain if ANI has filed a case against them. In both cases YouTube shared with them a document which ANI claims is a petition it has submitted to the courts against the YouTuber.

It could not be independently ascertained if ANI had pursued the cases in court against the two YouTubers who stood their ground against the allegations of copyright violations. ANI did not respond to queries asking them to confirm the status of these and other such petitions. 

In yet another case, against YouTuber Akram Khan, owner of Channel Dhaakad Khabar, the Patiala Court indeed found infringement of ANI’s copyright by the creator. This case was submitted to the Delhi High Court by ANI in their petition against Mohak. ANI shared this case with The Collective, in its response to our questionnaire too. 

ANI maintains publicly that even using mere seconds of ANI footage does not come under the fair use exception. “Fair use allows (content creators) to report and write about a news event, but it does not give them the legal right to copy my expression of the news event,” Sidhant Kumar Marwah said. Sidhant is the owner of Unum Law, which is also representing ANI against OpenAI and Wikimedia Foundation in two separate cases. Sidhant is the son of Navika Kumar, Group Editor in Chief of Times Now. 

With Mohak Mangal, ANI has also arraigned comic Kunal Kamra, and fact-checker and founder of Alt News, Mohammed Zubair for alleged defamation before the Delhi High Court. The two cases of defamation and copyright infringement continue to be heard by the two different courts.