A YouTube creator has said that an ANI Employee phone calls, demanding payment of 15 lakhs to 40 lakhs, for alleged copyright infringement. Mohak Mangal, a YouTube creator with over 4 million subscribers, has been “intimidated” with a Channel shutdown by ANI for alleged copyright infringement. Though his team has warned that similar cases have happened with other creators, where ANI has been reportedly sent copyright strikes and demands to pay lakhs in return to remove the strikes, the real callout came after the Reporter’s Collective published a report, titled, ‘ANI Finds Business Niche in Copyright Claims Against YouTubers’ on May 19, 2025.
The report alleges that “The agency’s approach is to negotiate pricey licensing deals with YouTubers, including several who are strong critics of the BJP, even as YouTube holds a sword over the content producer’s channel for multiple claims of copyright violation.”
In a video he uploaded on May 25, Mohakmangal said he received phone calls from ANI employees. In the video, the employees are heard demanding up to 40 lakhs and offering their annual subscription. In a phone call, the ANI employee is heard discussing whether the footage was for seconds, 5 minutes, or 10 minutes and the video was used without his permission.
“I have put a claim on the video; you have used my footage without my permission. YouTube gave a strike. If you don’t give 50 lakhs, your channel will be deleted, ” the employee rebukes.
Mohak explains that he has got his first strike on May 21, for a video on the Kolkata rape case, which he has uploaded months ago. The video footage that ANI claims is for 11 seconds in the entire 16-minute video.
Mohak says that this type of usage should now amount to ‘fair use’ and that using footage of less than a minute for commentary in 30-minute videos falls under fair usage.
According to YouTube terms, if a channel receives three copyright strikes, it will be deleted or demonetised. Mohak received his third strike on his video on ‘Operation Sindoor’ for footage of Rajnath Singh speaking.
Following this was a row of two and fro calls and emails with ANI employees, during which ANI is heard demanding 48 lakhs and that they have sent more than 6 copyright strikes, and his channel will be deleted soon. ANI has set a value of 5 lakhs per strike and explained that they have given 8 strikes for Mangal’s channel, which is 40 lakhs. His team tried to negotiate the amount, but they would never be able to retrieve it. ANI was not ready to give any concession.
“If not 40 lakhs, then 30 lakhs for the annual subscription of one year,” they said.
He says that ANI targets creators irrespective of their ideology, gets the channel deleted, extorts money and then sells their annual subscription. When asked about claiming the revenue from the video, “the ANI employees retort that their business model is different and that they dont follow that”, recollected Mangal.
The report published by the Reporter’s Collective reveals that there is a small loophole in YouTube’s copyright policy in India and that giant media platforms like ANI are using that to shut down content creators and take advantage of selling their business niche.
