Damages worth two crore rupees have been sought by the TV Today Network in its lawsuit against Newslaundry alleging defamation and copyright infringement, according to a copy of the suit reviewed by MediaNama. The network, which runs India Today and Aaj Tak among many channels, has demanded that the Delhi High Court must direct Newslaundry to remove 34 articles published on its website and 65 videos from its YouTube channel. The network also wants Newslaundry to get rid of social media content related to these articles and videos posted on Newslaundry’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, it added. The defendants in the suit are Newslaundry, co-founder and CEO Abhinandan Sekhri, Director Prashant Sareen and Roopak Kapoor, Executive Editor Manisha Pande, Correspondent Ayush Tiwari, Columnist Hridayesh Tiwari, executive editors Atul Chaurasia, and Raman Kirpal, Google, Facebook, and Twitter. The lawsuit reignites the debate on the fair use clause in the Copyright Act, 1957, and how the Act is used to throttle critiques by legacy media houses. It raises pertinent questions about protections offered for dissent under Indian law. Contentions of the suit On copyright infringement The lawsuit levelled allegations of infringement on TV Today Network’s copyrights in these videos. TV Today Network wrote that the “use of such material by the defendants is an infringement of the copyright of the plaintiff in its news broadcasts” under the Copyright Act, 1957 accusing the Newslaundry of using various portions of original works and telecasts from its news channels. Newslaundry's use of video and sound…
