‘Didn’t expect to be vilified to this extent’: Humans of Bombay founder speaks up days after online trolling

‘While we did not expect to be vilified to his extent, it will not deter us from continuing to tell important stories,’ Mehta says

Karishma Mehta responds after the Delhi High Court ruling (YouTube / Raj Shamani)

The founder of Humans of Bombay (HOB) said she, her family, and her team were subjected to a slew of personal attacks, including death and rape threats, after she sued a similar social media page for copyright infringement.

“While we did not expect to be vilified to his extent it will not deter us from continuing to tell important stories ...,” said Karishma Mehta, the founder of HOB – an Indian version of the popular storytelling platform Humans of New York (HONY).

Ms Mehta faced major backlash last month for filing a copyright suit against People of India and seeking to restrain the page from appropriating what it claimed was its “unique format of storytelling”.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed both the "storytelling platforms" to not use each other's copyrighted work such as commissioned images, literary works, original pieces, and commissioned videos.

The judge, however, added that there could be no copyright claims for photographs provided by individuals from their private collection.

Ms Mehta was called out online for a host of reasons, including monetising her content for profit and reluctance to “recognise her privilege”.

Creator of HONY Brandon Stanton called out Ms Mehta for copying his own original initiative.

“I’ve stayed quiet on the appropriation of my work because I think Humans Of Bombay shares important stories, even if they’ve monetised far past anything I’d feel comfortable doing on HONY,” he said. “But you can’t be suing people for what I’ve forgiven you for.”

Following the court ruling, Ms Mehta in a statement said her legal action was about "substantial imitation", necessitated after the other page "didn't stop the plagiarism" despite 16 of their posts being taken down by Instagram.

"The outcome of this case will set a precedent for the creator community and will hopefully go a long way in safeguarding the original content that creators work so hard to build," Ms Mehta wrote.

Ms Mehta justified the monetisation of the page's content, saying: "While some may choose to monetise stories through mediums like books and subscription platforms, we have chosen to do it primarily through meaningful campaigns with partners."