What’s not playing on Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime or Apple TV but is currently garnering a lot of attention?

Well, it is a legal tussle happening in Mumbai now involving two storytelling platforms – Humans of Bombay and its competitor, People of India.

It should not take very long for the saga to be turned into a proper movie script which they can film in Bollywood.

First, for those who are geography-challenged, Bombay is Mumbai and Mumbai is Bombay.

In a nutshell, Humans, ahem, is accusing People of copyright infringement. It claimed that the latter has ripped content off them without permission or compensation.

Now cue in one Brandon Stanton, founder of Humans of New York(HONY), the original, who decided that he needed to join the conversation because he had been very tolerant and magnanimous with the Humans of Bombay folks for copying his idea almost in full.

Posting on X, Stanton says, “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.”

Fact is Stanton has also been very kind to many HONY-inspired sites all over the world. Just Google Humans of (fill in your favorite city) and it is likely that you will come up with something other than HONY.

So far, Humans in Bombay have spared no effort in saying they are two different things. To give itself credence, legal phrases like ‘copyright infringement’ and ‘intellectual property’ theft are tossed around to confuse.

But no, it is actually not that complicated.

There is no doubt that Humans of Bombay copied HONY to the core and it is not even something they are trying very hard to hide. However, neither are they honest enough to admit what they did. Some of their supporters are claiming perhaps rightly so, that anyone can copy a concept but not content.

Humans of Bombay’s main beef with People of India, at least on the surface, is the wholesale plagiarism of its original content. There are enough proofs available online to substantiate that accusation. Quite clearly, the Humans of Bombay has a good case against its competitor.

Stanton is not wrong to be aggrieved but he may not stand a good chance of winning the legal battle, if he chooses to pursue, given that even if the concept of HONY can be registered, it may not be possible to enforce it all over the world unless he has expensive and good lawyers. In order to be effective, he will probably have to trademark it in every country and that will cost money.

This is even more difficult in certain parts of the world where intellectual property rights are not respected.
I believe he knows that which is why he has not attempted to sue anyone.

Instead, what we have is an online hero who is widely credited for pioneering this storytelling approach, even if that achievement is exaggerated. He will forever be the man who came with with Humans of New York and inspired lots of copycats. That accolade is probably more valuable.
Sure, Stanton invented Humans of New York which is a fantastic concept that many wished they had come up.

But no, he did not invent this brand of storytelling. News organizations have always done profiles with pictures and words and presented them in similar fashion.

What is bizarre in this case is how silly and lazy some people are.

Can Humans of Bombay claim that their concept is original and independent of HONY? Certainly not.

How did they manage to convince investors and advertisers to jump on their bandwagon? Because those money folks are lazy and don’t do their homework.

Why should they waste time when they could see the success of HONY?

So the easy way — ride on its popularity. Even if it means misleading some people that they are an official part of HONY, and that this is a global movement.

If they just like the idea and want to replicate it, they could have worked a little harder to give their own product enough unique elements to distinguish it from the master they cloned from.

They could have shot everything in black and white, use a stylistic photographic technique and call it The Hearts & Souls of Bombay.
They won’t because that would be too much work when you are trying to play catch-up.

If they are nice people, they would probably have written to Stanton to ask for his blessing and endorsement.

But that will mean losing time and opportunities to make money sooner which is what this really is all about.