A couple of days ago, Mohak Mangal accused ANI for their “Money Extortion” act where he revealed that ANI representatives asked him for nearly 30 lakhs + GST amount for subscription to their footages and that failure to comply with it will result in more copyright strikes from Youtube. For people who do not know, three copyright strikes results account termination on Youtube and ANI had sent two strikes to Mohak Mangal.

Smita, in response to growing outrage against ANI for demanding money, echoed the sentiment on Twitter of an article from Best Media Info titled “Piracy is not free speech: Why YouTubers must pay for ANI’s content”.

She also responded that there is ANI’s pricing structure for subscribers and criticised the ones who are calling ANI’s act as “loots”. While one cannot exactly decipher what she was trying to imply but may be Smita was indicating that ANI provides some sort of affordable pricing plan for Youtubers depending on the number of subscribers they have.

Sakhet Gokhale, an MP from TMC party has written a letter to Google, urging them to take serious note of the matter and has asked the Tech giant to give clarification whether non-creative work can be used for fair use or not.

What exactly is ANI’s Business Model?

ANI as a news agency and as such they are focussed on ground reporting and records footages about various events from their own cameras. They then sell these footages to news channels and other similar entities.

Many people have also came in support of ANI and Smita Prakash and believe that footages should not be used by Youtubers even for fair use as their intent is mainly commercial rather than informative.

Lets take a look at IPL. IPL’s rights does not allow a single frame to be used for fair use. Whether ANI’s footage can be used for fair use or not can only be deciphered through law perspective.

Mohak Mangal is a content creator from India, who receives millions of views per month. He is widely regarded as creating deeply-analyszed content free from sensationalism which is likened by the individuals.

In a recent video released by Mohak Mangal on 24th May 2025, you will be surprised to know the youtube creator has received a copyright strike notice from news agency ANI.

As per the Youtuber, that the news agency sent him a copyright strike on 20th May for a footage which spans over 9 seconds in one video. But what is more surprising is that the ANI is asking for nearly 50 lakh rupees as compensation as per Mohak.

The Youtuber has strongly condemned the “money extortion” act by ANI where they are after Youtubers to extract money on the threat of getting their channels deleted through copyright strikes. Mohak also claimed that ANI has extorted a lot of money from many Youtubers through same tactics.

Mohak released the telephonic audio conversation (AI Recreated) that he had with the ANI employee. The employee who portrays himself from the ANI, can be seen maintaining a strict tone for complying with the compensation money or face the possibility of channel deletion through copyright strikes.

Mohak has written a letter to the Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Information and Broadcasting with the subject line “Subject: Request for Intervention: Threats to India’s Creator Economy by ANI” for getting familiar with the matter.

It is to be noted that few days ago, Youtuber content creator Paurush Sharma also revealed that he has been blackmailed through copyright strikes for his account deletion. Parush didn’t revealed who was sent him copyright strike. He collected funds from his subscribers and paid of the money.

Dhruv Rathee, Nitish Rajput, Thugesh and other Youtubers comes in Support

Fellow Youtubers Dhruv Rathee and Nitish Rajput have come in full support for Mohak Mangal. Dhruv even called it as an “extortion racket”. They have blamed Youtube for allowing such copyright strikes to be sent without verifying fair usage policy.

Other notable Indian Youtubers like Ishita Mangal, MSKVlogs, MahiNergy have also extended their support to Mohak Mangal.

Youtuber Thugesh also shared a similar incident where he was asked by ANI to buy subscription for Rs 15 Lakhs for using 2 seconds of ANI footage in his video.

Can footage from other channels be used?

As per Youtube, fair use is allowed and the rules are mostly similar in all the countries. They cite that in United States, thinigs like commentary, criticism and speech and news reporting is considered fair use.

However, it is also important to note that ANI is a news agency and as such their business models relies on ground journalism and then selling the footage to news channels. Whether Mohak’s usage of 9 – 11 seconds of ANI clips falls under fair usage or not can only interpreted through legal law.