BENGALURU: The creator of “Humans of New York” has slammed an Indian version of the blog for suing a rival, accusing it of unreasonably monetising the stories of its subjects.

Brandon Stanton launched “Humans of New York” in 2010, sharing interviews with city residents alongside their photos.

It was a runaway success and three years later, Karishma Mehta started “Humans of Bombay” in her home city of Mumbai, which now has 2.7 million followers on Instagram.

This month, Mehta filed a copyright infringement suit against the “People of India” Instagram account, claiming it had “replicated a large number of images and videos” from her page. The case has sparked a social media storm with many chiding Mehta, including Stanton.

“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,” Stanton wrote Saturday on X, formerly Twitter.

“But you can’t be suing people for what I’ve forgiven you for.”

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2023