A filmmaker and photographer has filed a Rs 18.11-crore infringement suit against Zee Media Corporation Ltd in a West Bengal court for using his footage of cheetahs and branding it as “super exclusive”. 

Saumyajit Sen alias Ronny Sen has claimed that Zee News broadcast the footage which he had recorded while acting as the sole photographer granted access inside the aircraft during the landmark 2022 intercontinental translocation of cheetahs from Africa to India. He claimed the channel used a 12-second, close-up video showing a cheetah inside a transport crate without crediting him, compensating him, or obtaining his consent. 

Although the footage was produced for National Geographic and published on its site on September 13, 2022, Sen retained the copyright and the right to license it to third parties. 

According to the suit, the footage was of “one of those cheetahs earmarked for India, while it was being transported from Tswalu Game Reserve, South Africa to Grand Central Airport in Midrand, South Africa, inside a transport crate”. Sen alleged that Zee News falsely branded this footage as their “super exclusive”. 

According to the suit, the channel allegedly aired this footage on its channel on September 16 and 17, 2022, and streamed it live on its official YouTube channel, after which it was uploaded as a series of standalone videos without any communication, request for rights, or clearance.

The eight cheetahs, which were transported from Namibia, were later released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his birthday (September 17) in 2022. This translocation effort ultimately resulted in the cheetahs being released into Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, following a mandatory one-month quarantine period upon arrival in India. 

Loss of commercial value and questions over ‘fair use’ 

Zee Media’s unauthorised release of the footage, the suit contended, had significant financial implications for Sen as his work, which is regularly licensed and distributed across markets in North America, Europe, and Asia, lost its exclusivity and long-term commercial potential.

As per the suit, Ronny’s lawyers had allegedly first issued a cease-and-desist notice demanding that the infringing videos be taken down immediately, and when Zee Media failed to respond, they initiated legal action. As a mandatory precondition to filing a suit in a commercial court, his legal team filed for pre-institution mediation, during which the court’s mediation centre sent a notice to Zee. However, Zee neither replied nor appeared, Sen alleged. 

According to the suit, “The Defendants’ acts constitute copyright infringement under the Copyright Act, 1957. Furthermore, the deliberate misrepresentation of another’s copyrighted work as one’s own – and broadcasting it under a false narrative of exclusivity – constitutes offences under Section 63 of the Act.” 

According to The Indian Express, “Media houses in such cases typically rely on Section 52(1)(a)(iii) of the Copyright Act, which covers ‘fair dealing’. This allows for the use of copyrighted work for the purpose of reporting current events.”

“However, the legal test for fair dealing is strict. It generally requires acknowledging the source, which Zee did not do, according to the suit,” it added. 

Newslaundry reached out to Zee Media for their response to Sen’s allegations, and will update this story once we’ve received it.     

The first hearing for this suit has been scheduled for January 16, 2026. 

Not for the first time

Sen noted, “This is not an isolated dispute – it is a fight to set an unambiguous legal precedent. Major corporations cannot be allowed to systematically plunder an individual artist’s work, misappropriate it, rebrand it as their own so-called ‘super exclusive’ content, and commercially exploit it with impunity. This suit is about asserting accountability, enforcing the law, and drawing a definitive line that should have been enforced decades ago.I have full faith in the Indian judiciary and am confident that the court will deliver justice.” 

He also alleged this isn’t the first time Zee Media has used his work without prior consent or attribution. The network’s Bengali news website Zee 24 Ghanta had allegedly republished photos Sen took during the 2014 Jadavpur University protests without attribution or his consent. Sen alleged that only after he directly confronted the network did the network acknowledge the infringement and decide to pay him. 

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