Asian News International (ANI) has initiated a copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit against the producers of Netflix’s series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, at the Delhi High Court highlighting that despite reaching out to ANI for the video footage shown on the web series, no formal agreement was reached.
The series dramatises the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814, incorporating ANI’s footage of key figures such as former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Pakistani General Pervez Musharraf, and Masood Azhar of the terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed.
ANI’s footage was used in four out of six episodes, prominently featuring the ANI logo. Bar and Bench reports that ANI’s legal team is demanding the removal of this footage and the blurring of their logo in the series.
In response, the producers’ legal representatives argue that the series procured the footage through payments totalling Rs. 1.75 crore to Conceptual and Wilderness, two firms that acquired the footage from Reuters, a company in which ANI shares.
In addition to the lawsuit against Netflix, ANI filed a defamation case against Wikipedia at the Delhi High Court. ANI contends that Wikipedia’s description of the agency as a ‘propaganda tool’ and a distributor of fake news is defamatory.
ANI seeks the removal of this description and Rs. 2 crore in damages. In September 2024, the Delhi High Court issued a contempt notice against Wikipedia for failing to comply with a previous order to provide information on those responsible for the alleged defamatory edits to ANI’s Wikipedia page.
The court has also indicated that it may request the Indian government to consider shutting down Wikipedia’s operations in India if compliance is not met.
Last year, the Delhi High Court summoned BBC, Wikipedia, and Internet Archive in response to a criminal complaint to prevent them from publishing a documentary on the 2002 Gujrat riots.
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