The controversy over the Humans of New York founder getting angry with the Humans of Bombay (HOB) page has been going around like wildfire recently.
Even when the latter first started everyone obviously knew it was an Indian take on the Humans of New York (HONY) page that posted simple stories of people from the area, but in that scenario it wasn’t just the Bombay page doing so.
There were a lot of other regions and places starting their own ‘Humans of’ pages that let outsiders have a better insight into the lives and cultures of the local people. However, on Saturday, HONY founder posted a tweet calling out HOB and being angry over their actions.
What Did HONY Founder Say?
On 23rd of September 2023, Humans of New York founder Brandon Stanton posted on his X (formerly Twitter) page that “I’ve stayed quiet on the appropriation of my work because I think @HumansOfBombay shares important stories, even if they’ve monetized far past anything I’d feel comfortable doing on HONY. But you can’t be suing people for what I’ve forgiven you for.”
The 39-year-old blogger was referencing the tweet he had quoted, it being about how the Delhi High Court had issued summons to ‘People of India’, another storytelling Instagram page, for copyright infringement.
The summons was in regard to a lawsuit filed by the HOB company in September wanting an injunction against the People of India page and alleging that the latter was using the former’s content.
“Humans of Bombay” was started by Karishma Mehta, a writer and photographer, in 2014 as a Facebook page which then became a full company after it achieved immense popularity.
The tagline of the platform is “cataloging the beat of humanity… one story at a time!” and seems to be inspired by the caption for HONY which is “New York City, one story at a time”. HONY was started in 2010 by photographer Brandon Stanton and has since spread across the world with several regions starting their own ‘Humans of’ page.
Read More: Since When Did Humans Of Bombay Start Doing Paid Propaganda For Politicians Before Elections?
To this, HOB posted an open letter to Brandon stating that Brandon should have researched what the case was before making his post.
Dear Brandon,
As with the hundreds of Humans of chapters around the world, we love and understand the power of storytelling.
It’s therefore shocking that a cryptic assault on our efforts to protect our intellectual property is made in this manner, especially without understanding the background of the case.
Perhaps, before jumping the gun on this matter, you ought to have equipped yourself with the information about the case and also about what HOB is trying to achieve. HOB is all for the power of story telling. But it should be done honestly and ethically. We have sent you an email, requesting a conversation to provide further details.
We believe in the honourable court of India and will request patience for law to take it’s own course after hearing ALL facts of the matter.
Best,
Humans of Bombay
HOB, however, changed their tone the next day by clarifying further that “We are grateful to HONY (‘Humans of New York’) and Brandon for starting this storytelling movement. The suit is related to the IP in our posts & not about storytelling at all. We tried to address the issue amicably before approaching the Court, as we believe in protecting our team’s hard work.”
What Is The Case About?
The case in question was filed by ‘Humans of Bombay’ (HOB) against an Instagram handle namely ‘People of India’ (POI) for allegedly plagiarising content from HOB itself.
According to the plea “…the similarities between the infringing content and the plaintiff’s content not just constitutes infringement of copyright owned by the plaintiff but also to passing off and unfair competition, as the defendants have evidently, knowingly and deliberately published content that is identical or substantially similar to the popular content comprised of plaintiffs works in an attempt to ride on goodwill that has been painstakingly built by the plaintiff.”
HOB also posted the court documents relaying what exactly the case was and listed identical content on the HOB and POI pages.
HOB accused POI of “completely replicating its business model and even the stories themselves” and that the page reached out to the same people as on the HOB website to create an “imitative platform”.
Image Credits: Google Images
Feature Image designed by Saudamini Seth
Sources: Hindustan Times, Moneycontrol, Livemint
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: Brandon Stanton, Brandon Stanton Humans of New York, Humans of Bombay, Humans of Bombay court case, Humans of Bombay delhi high court, delhi high court, People of India
Disclaimer: We do not hold any right, copyright over any of the images used, these have been taken from Google. In case of credits or removal, the owner may kindly mail us.
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