The Delhi High Court’s refusal to re-block Dynamite News’ YouTube channel exposes the litigation strategy prevalent against digital news platforms. Analysing the decision, Md. Thahir Sulaiman assesses the limits of asserting copyright and trademark claims through a combination of court proceedings and YouTube’s takedown regime and explains the implications these moves have in curbing free speech. Thahir is a third year BALLB (Hons) student from the National Law School of India University, with interests in corporate law and technology law. His previous posts can be accessed here.
Injunction or Copyright Strike: Examining the DHC Order in ANI v Dynamite News
By Md. Thahir Sulaiman
On October 29, 2025, a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court (“DHC”) dismissed the appeal filed by news agency Asian News International (“ANI”) against the order to unblock Dynamite News’ YouTube channel. This order follows a series of legal proceedings, including those against YouTuber Mohak Mangal (discussed by Tanishka), through which ANI has been seeking to assert control over its trademarks and copyrights in news clips shared on online platforms, most notably YouTube. This post analyses the reasoning behind the Division Bench’s order and examines whether seeking injunctive relief while simultaneously invoking YouTube’s takedown regime constitutes a legitimate enforcement of one’s copyrights against infringement, or instead reflects pressure tactics employed by ANI against competitors and entities it views as potential sources of licensing revenue.
Brief Background
To recap, ANI had initiated proceedings in early 2025 against online news outlet Dynamite News, seeking the removal of nine YouTube videos uploaded by them. ANI alleged that these videos used news clips that belongs to them. In response, Dynamite News submitted that the impugned videos shall be taken down and undertook that no new video uploaded on their channel will use ANI’s clips. As a result, a Single Judge of the DHC, by an order dated March 21, 2025, (“March Order”) directed Dynamite News to remove these nine impugned videos which used ANI’s clips without their authorisation, thus infringing upon their copyrights. Importantly, this March Order was not in the nature of a dynamic injunction, which would authorize ANI to get any additional allegedly infringing URLs taken down without approaching the Court again, but was limited to just nine videos alone. Upon complying with this order, YouTube had unblocked Dynamite News’s channel in accordance with the Court’s directions.
However, Dynamite News brought to the Court’s attention that, after the March order, ANI had also approached YouTube directly, seeking copyright strikes against eight additional YouTube videos allegedly containing ANI’s news clips. This resulted in YouTube blocking Dynamite News’s channel for a second time, despite the outlet’s compliance with the Court’s earlier March order. As a result, on 14 October, 2025, the Single Judge directed YouTube to unblock Dynamite News’s channel for the second time and permitted Dynamite News to delete these eight additional videos as well. The Court agreed with Dynamite News that ANI had tried to overreach the March Order by getting the channel blocked without approaching the Court or getting its leave (Para 19).
The present case concerns ANI’s appeal from this (second) order of the Single Judge. The Division Bench dismissed the appeal, noting that the eight videos in question had all been uploaded prior to March 21, 2025 and any grievances against these eight videos should be raised before the DHC itself, rather than directly approaching YouTube.
What is notable here, however, is the manner in which the Court reacted. The order expressed its “undisguised displeasure” at the way ANI had acted, having effectively undone the March order and managed to get Dynamite News’s YouTube channel blocked again, despite it having been unblocked pursuant to the previous court direction. At this juncture, three important questions arise that merit closer attention.
Firstly, was the Court really justified in reprimanding ANI for approaching YouTube directly?
The Court answered this by observing that the eight additional videos that led to the second blocking of the YouTube channel were all uploaded prior to the March order. While ANI was well within its power to challenge these eight videos in the original suit, it chose not to do so for reasons best known to it. Moreover, these videos did not constitute a continuing cause of action, since they did not represent a wrong repeated over a period of time. For this reason, they did not breach the existing injunction. In these circumstances (where judicial intervention had already been sought and granted), the appropriate course of action for ANI should have been to bring the matter to the Court’s attention and impugn the videos through judicial proceedings, rather than by unilateral recourse to YouTube.
This reasoning, however, does not seem sufficient. It still remains unclear why ANI should be prevented from approaching YouTube directly merely because judicial intervention had been sought. As a result, the second question arises: why should ANI be barred from approaching YouTube directly with respect to additional videos simply because court proceedings are underway?
Foul isn’t Fair: On Fairness between Adversaries
This was addressed by the Court by invoking the idea of fairness. The Court emphasized that while commercial litigation may be adversarial, “even adversaries are required to act fairly” (Para 20). Thus, once the jurisdiction of the Court has been invoked to obtain injunctive relief (as was done by ANI), it is not open to the parties to seek alternate means of enforcing their claims, particularly where such actions undermine judicial directions or cause prejudice to the opposing party.
The significance of this decision thus lies in the Court’s recognition that, even though parties may have parallel avenues available to enforce their proprietary rights, they are nevertheless required to act strictly through the Court – not because any procedural statute mandates it, but because the Court determined that ANI had not “acted fairly” (Para 19).
Although not explicitly stated, this invocation of “fairness” also has implications over concerns about the chilling effect on free speech that may arise when platforms take down content directly without a court order. In light of recent instances, such as ANI’s takedown of Kunal Kamra’s YouTube video(discussed by Anjali Tripathi), the DHC order can be seen as a corrective against such potentially abusive measures.
Nonetheless, while the invocation of fairness as a guiding principle is to be appreciated, what precisely constitutes “fair” conduct remains somewhat ambiguous. This is particularly important in cases where this reasoning effectively restricts a party’s ability to enforce its proprietary rights, as in this case.
In the present case, for instance, it must be noted that the March order was not in the nature of a dynamic injunction (as discussed by Krishna Ravishankar and Parul Anand), nor did it contain any specific directions to YouTube regarding possible future infringements, apart from the direction to unblock Dynamite News’ channel once the nine videos were taken down. In these circumstances, therefore, the Court’s assertion that ANI had acted “unfairly,” is not as clear or convincing as the Court appears to suggest, since ANI’s approach to YouTube seemingly falls outside the scope of the relief that the DHC was adjudicating on.
For these reasons, although the Court’s reasoning may appear justified, it would have been more persuasive had it elaborated on the scope of what it means to “act fairly.”
Injunctive Reliefs as Pressure Tactics?
The third question that arises becomes evident when viewed in a broader context. With large, well-established media organisations (such as ANI) increasingly pursuing independent content creators (such as smaller digital news outlets like Dynamite News) for preventing copyright infringement, one must ask: Are these injunctive reliefs truly meant to protect genuine claims of copyright infringement, or are they being used as pressure tactics to intimidate smaller creators, such as by getting their channels blocked?
When examining such cases, it must be remembered that the purpose of copyright law is not to create limited monopolies, but to promote the creation of public goods by incentivising authors to produce more, thereby contributing to public value. Injunctive reliefs, therefore, must be directed towards preventing and protecting against violations of an author’s copyright, not towards pursuing other objectives such as encashing from or abusing the legal process, whereby the remedy of injunction takes on the character of pressure tactics.
Returning to the Mohak Mangal dispute mentioned earlier, ANI had reportedly threatened Mangal with demands exceeding ₹40 lakh for using clips that were merely ten seconds long. In such circumstances, even if the use of these clips would fall within the scope of the de minimis principle or the doctrine of fair dealing, injunctive reliefs are still being wrongfully invoked as ad-interim measures. When compounded by the severe impact of channel blocking on an independent creator’s ability to earn and produce content, this further disturbs the balance of the convenience test in the grant of injunctions, especially given the inherent power imbalance in such scenarios. For these reasons, the Division Bench’s order is significant, not only because it upholds the direction preventing the circumvention of court orders, but also because it invites reflection on the merits of such injunctive reliefs and the circumstances in which they ought to be granted.
