In Indian Twitter (currently known as X) lingo, any kind of verbal skirmish is termed as e-lafda (fight). The latest one is between YouTuber Mohan Mangal and ANI over the use of copyrighted clips. Mohak claims that he has used 5-10 seconds of clips in a few of his recent videos from ANI coverage regarding recent events such as Operation Sindoor in his videos covering the same, and ANI has applied a copyright strike on his YouTube channel because of this. His claim is that when he contacted ANI for the reason and the removal of the copyright strike, he was informed that it would only happen if he pays somewhere in the range of 40-50 lakhs + GST to ANI for the use of those clips in his videos (they claim they have applied for 8 copyright strikes, so there are more to come). Failure to do so will result in getting 3 strikes (2 of which he has received already) that will lead to an automatic channel deletion as per YouTube policy.

Mohak obviously given his commentary on the topic wants to take up the fight but the real questions to ask are

  1. Can ANI do this? if yes will they succeed
  2. Should ANI do this will this become a norm.

Now copy right strikes have been for a while seen a “weapon” to be used against any content creator with reasons to be used can range from legal infringment to take down attempts, Something which I would not like to get into. I believe there are some universal truths and post that everything is up for debate. Right now the debate around this issue is pretty interesting.

People on the left are completely behind Mohak on this; supportingn him telling him that he is right and sharing his message accross twitter and other media platforms. Left leaning political leaders have also come out in support of him. Obviously the people who are opposite to him are the people on the Right. It helps because ANI is often seen as a right leaning news organization but from my perspective they are centre right. Most of the time they try to be neutral or have a moral stance but the Lean towards BJP and right wing is pretty clear. So natrually as per the rules of any good ecosystem the right has come and supported ANI accussing Mohak and everybody supporting him or even trying to debate with them of being “left cronies” or “sadak chap” or whatever fancy insult they would like to call them. I personally don’t really worry or care about these personal attacks. It usually means the person resorting to these has no substantial argument left in them so they are trying to reach the bottom of the barrel. More than what the arguement is being made about I like to disect how well the arguement is formed in support or against stance. So I’ll try to do both here

Pro Mohak side

  1. Youtube has a fair use policy that allows copyright material avaliable on the platform to be used for commentary and educational purpose.
  2. If there is a problem with the copyright infrigment there are better ways to deal with revenue sharing of the video. Demonetization. Prior intimation of the copyright strike asking for fair compensation of the clips used.
  3. The way ANI handled it, Its pretty obvious they don’t want to go a sustainable business model route where everyone can win. The idea of using copyright strike as a gun to shoot down the whole household for ransom. Yes if this is how they want to play it then lets play it in court see how it turns. Probably some judgement around this would help.
  4. For the people who are supporting ANI they should know tomorrow they can be in the same place sometime in the future.

Pro ANI side

  1. Our clip our right we can do whatever the hell we want.
  2. We spend money on stringers, reporters sources equipments, work hard verify news produce clippings. So why shouldn’t we get compensated for it. News channels pay for our clips why can’t youtubers do the same.
  3. We offered mohak a way to resolve this with money. We just want fair compensation today youtube is also a revenue generating platform . If a content creator is making revenue, paying for a team , equipements , resources licesning of softwares and other media , why can’t they pay us?
  4. Its our perogative to decide who we charge money whom we don’t. We are not obliged to favour anyone specific because they support ur or our in our good books. That being said we give concessions when we want to ; to whoever we want to.

I beleive that this was one of the few ways we can look at it but twitter as usual barring some accounts believes in serving the lowest common denominator and rage baiting. I hate this part of the site. Because majority of people either are low IQ or behave like a low IQ for engagement farming. After all ins’t all this about this about money