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Humans Of Bombay Controversy Explained: What was seen as a positive platform to share stories with the internet community a while back, instantly found itself in the eye of the storm after an allegation that backfired hard. Humans Of Bombay, founded by Karishma Mehta, is a popular photoblog that narrates the stories of the Mumbaikers. The page has millions of followers on its Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) handles as it shares stories worth celebrating and sharing. However, the entire thing entered a deadly controversy after the platform filed a 'copyright infringement suit' against the Instagram account ‘People of India’. The suit claimed that the ‘People of India’ ‘replicated’ images and videos from Humans Of Bombay, which gained the attention of Brandon Stanton. Brandon Stanton, founder of Humans Of New York, opened the page back in 2010, where he shared the stories from New York and its people. Responding to the suit, Brandon Stanton spoke on the matter. 

“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,” read Stanton’s post. “I’ve always loved @HumansofAdam because Debra has stayed so true to the art, and has never viewed the stories that she shares as the “front end” of a business,” the X post further read. 

Responding back to Stanton’s post, Humans Of Bombay fell deep into the controversy as the netizens were quick to call the page a “hypocrite”, as they stated that Mehta did 'something similar' but still went ahead and sued the ‘People of India’.

Taking to their social media, people were quick to troll Mehta. Many dug out her old video explaining ‘Humans of Bombay’ being her "original idea" and compared it with other 'rip-off brands'. 

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“Humans of Bombay founder Karishma Mehta said that she got the idea of HOB "Completely randomly and out of the blue". It's like Abibas/Poma saying that they got the idea completely random and then sued Adidas/Puma,” a user said. 

“Humans of Bombay’s profit went up by 60% in 2022 to 3 crores. And apparently, her father who she claims loaned her 1,00,000 is a Director in the same company. “Privilege enough”? We wait for this year’s profit,” said another. 

“The audacity & entitlement of Humans of Bombay to issue this statement. They shamelessly stole the idea of Humans of New York and are now suing People of India to protect their "intellectual property,” said a next. 

“Humans of Bombay should be grateful to HONY & Brandon for their entire existence!” added another. 

In its recent efforts to calm down the storm, Humans of Bombay shared an X post on the matter and expressed its gratitude towards HONY and Brandon for starting the 'storytelling movement’. The post also clarified its intentions behind the suit. 

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“We are grateful to HONY & Brandon for starting this storytelling movement. The suit is related to the IP in our posts & not about storytelling at all. We tried to address the issue amicably before approaching the Court, as we believe in protecting our team’s hard work,” the post read. However, it did not sit well with the netizens as they received some not-so-welcoming responses. “Flowers for your page, as it is dead now,” a user said. “Founder of HOB 'Privileged' went abroad to study, copied everything of HONY, and pasted it in Mumbai,” added another. “So shameless you are,” added another. “The fact you address this as a business model speaks volumes,” said another.