TV9, News Nation move Delhi High Court to save YouTube channels following copyright infringement suits in US

TV9 and News Nation have approached the Delhi High Court to save their YouTube channels after copyright infringement suits were filed against them in a United States court..The news platforms have asked the High Court for an anti-suit injunction against the plaintiffs in the US court and a direction to YouTube to not suspend their channels. An anti-suit injunction is a court order that prohibits a defendant from initiating or continuing any parallel litigation in another jurisdiction..Justice Anish Dayal heard TV9 and News Nation’s cases last week and adjourned them to March..Viral DRM, a digital rights management company, along with storm-chasers/photographers/videographers like WX Chasing, Live Storms Media, Hank Schyma and Brian Enfinger, sued a host of Indian news platforms in a California court.These include India TV, TV9, News Nation, Zee News, Times Now Navbharat and The Quint Hindi, among others.The allegation against these channels is that in the past few years, they ran news programs relating to various natural disasters, heavy snowfall in the US, New York floods, the Chinese balloon incident as well as the Israel-Hamas war using videos/photos shot by storm-chasers and other content creators, without authorisation and without giving due credit. .TV9 told the Court that there is an imminent threat of its digital channel being removed from YouTube on account of a decision which may be taken by the courts in the United States or by YouTube.Its counsel argued that removal of the YouTube channel will cause huge damage, considering that it is in the business of news dissemination.Meanwhile, YouTube told the Bench that TV9’s channels have not been removed from the platform, although some infringing videos have been taken down..Justice Dayal considered the submissions and said that at this stage, there is no urgency to pass protective orders in favour of TV9.He issued notices to the defendants and listed the case for further hearing on March 19..In the case of News Nation, the Court was told by Google that the channel has not been terminated, but only certain URLs were disabled. Further, it was banned from uploading content since it had copyright strikes based on notices sent by the US litigants and others.It was stated that News Nation’s channel is not being terminated or deleted from YouTube and the uploaded data has been restored since the channel has zero strikes at this moment.Counsel appearing for Clement and others said that they will file their reply to News Nation’s plea for anti-suit injunction..The Bench, therefore, gave them the time and listed the case on March 5..Senior Advocate Jayant Mehta along with Advocates Aman Jha, Rishi Tutu, Gaurav P Shah and Akshay appeared for News Nation.Advocates Harsh Kaushik, Anushree Rauta, Rahul Dhote, Shwetank Tripathi, Harsh Prakash, Sachin, Mohit Bangwal and Kunal Gupta from ANM Global represented TV9.Advocates Saurabh Bindal, Akshita Salampuria and Akanksha Batra appeared for Viral DRM, WX Chasing, Live Storms Media, Hank Schyma and Brian Enfinger (plaintiffs before the US court).Google was represented through Advocates Aditya Gupta, Mamta Jha, Shruttima and Rohan Ahuja..[Read Orders]