On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court requested responses from Meta and the US-based celebrity news agency Backgrid USA regarding a lawsuit by TV Today seeking the restoration of Harper’s Bazaar India’s Instagram page [TV Today Network Limited & Anr v Backgrid USA Inc & Ors.].
Justice Anish Dayal issued notice and scheduled further hearing for July 9.
However, the Court emphasized that ad hoc directions cannot be issued in the matter.
“We can’t pass an ad hoc order in this matter. We do not want to tread on the legal right in an ad hoc manner,” the Court stated.
The Court informed Harper’s Bazaar that they cannot deny any wrongdoing.
“You cannot say you have not committed any sin. You can say I did not know it was a sin.”
Advocate Hrishikesh Baruah represented Harper’s Bazaar and informed the Court that their Instagram page, which has nearly 7,000 posts, was suspended despite only three posts being found infringing.
Baruah stated that they negotiated with Backgrid to retract their copyright strikes, but Backgrid demanded “extortionist prices” for the photographs.
Meanwhile, advocate Tejas Karia represented Meta and argued that the action against Harper’s Bazaar was taken in accordance with the IT Rules and Meta’s policy. Karia mentioned that notices were issued to Harper’s Bazaar before their account was suspended.
“There is a clear provision in the IT Rules for the takedown of handles in case of copyright violation. Rule 3(1) mandates due diligence by the intermediary, and the intermediary has the right to remove copyrighted content. I have the right under the Rules to terminate his account, which I have exercised,” Karia stated.
Backgrid had filed three copyright strikes against Harper’s Bazaar India for allegedly using fifteen Halloween pictures without authorization.
After the suspension of the Harper’s Bazaar India Instagram page due to these strikes, TV Today initially filed a plea against Meta (owner of Instagram) before the High Court.
Upon consideration of this plea, the High Court directed TV Today to seek relief from the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) established under the Information Technology Rules.
The GAC subsequently upheld Meta’s decision to suspend the Harper’s Bazaar India Instagram page.
Following this, TV Today filed a case against Backgrid before the Delhi High Court.
On May 21, the Court was informed that Harper’s Bazaar obtained fifteen photographs from fan pages and published them on their platform. Backgrid then issued a copyright strike, leading to the suspension of the page.
TV Today argued that the use of the photographs falls under fair use, but Backgrid demanded nearly US$ 2,000 for each picture to revoke their strikes, despite charging much less for normal use.
