Patna, Bihar — On January 2, 2016, a little-known Maithili-language YouTube channel uploaded an interview with a teenage folk singer who had just gained national attention after appearing on Indian Idol Junior. The interview, conducted in Maithili, featured the singer talking about her journey and performing a song on camera. At the end of the clip, she thanked the channel for helping make her a star.
For nearly nine years, the video remained online without any controversy. It accumulated close to two lakh views, hundreds of comments, and no objections.
Then, in December 2025, it disappeared. The after-effects of that copyright strike were felt across newsrooms, bedrooms, and improvised studios in Bihar.
The interview triggered a copyright strike filed by the singer herself, Maithili Thakur, one of the most recognisable voices in Maithili folk music and a newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Bihar’s Alinagar constituency. This was the second copyright strike that the channel received.
By the end of the month, the third strike came. With three copyright strikes in quick succession, YouTube removed all three videos and restricted backend access to the channel. For Mithila Mirror, the Maithili-language digital news platform that uploaded the interview, the strikes threatened years of reporting, interviews, and cultural documentation.
For YouTube creators across Bihar, the episode landed as a warning.
Some are deleting old videos. Others are changing thumbnails or setting interviews to private. A few have decided to stop covering the sitting MLA altogether.
The Strikes, All From Maithili Thakur
The first copyright strike on Mithila Mirror’s YouTube channel came in November 2024. The channel had uploaded a short news video showing newly elected MLAs from Darbhanga district taking their oath in the Bihar Assembly. Seven MLAs took the oath in Maithili, including Maithili Thakur. The ceremony was livestreamed on the official website of the Bihar Assembly, making it part of the public record.
While uploading the video, YouTube auto-generated three thumbnail options. One featured Thakur during the oath-taking. Mithila Mirror selected it.
That thumbnail, Jha says, resulted in the first copyright strike on December 12, 2025.
The second and third strikes came on 26th December, targeting the 2016 interview and the song clip extracted from it. In both cases, Jha maintains, the recordings were produced by Mithila Mirror, with Thakur’s consent, at a time when she was neither a politician nor a commercial music brand.
“When you give an interview to a media organisation, the copyright of that recording belongs to the channel,” Jha said. “There was no objection for nine years. Suddenly, these videos are copyright violations.”
YouTube's system doesn't require claimants to prove ownership—only to assert it. Appeals take weeks or months. For small regional publishers operating on thin margins, that timeline is existential.
Ramit Verma, who runs The Official PeeingHuman, a YouTube channel known for its satirical content, feels the platform’s actions regarding copyright claims need to be changed. Verma, who owns two popular YouTube channels, has faced a barrage of copyright strikes, mostly from news agency ANI. YouTube had unusually stepped in to reject some of those strikes and explicitly recognised Verma’s use of the footage as protected fair dealing/fair use.
"If a copyright strike is issued, especially if there are three strikes in quick succession, creators should be given a few days to present their case before YouTube takes any action,” Verma said.
The Satire Before the Strikes
Within Bihar's media circles, many believe the timing was not coincidental.
In October 2025, weeks before assembly elections, Mithila Mirror founder, Jha, posted a satirical video criticising remarks made by the BJP MLA’s father, Ramesh Thakur. In an interview elsewhere, he had claimed to be among the earliest migrants from Bihar during what BJP and JD(U) describe as the "Jungle Raj" of the Lalu-Rabri era. The same day, BJP announced Maithili Thakur's candidacy from Alinagar.
Jha's satire used Khattar Kaka, a fictional character created by renowned Maithili writer Harimohan Jha. No names were mentioned. No images or audio clips used. The video remains online.
“As far as criticism is concerned, we will criticise a hundred times over because we are journalists and this is our job," Jha said.
"If there was a problem, they could have gone to court. Defamation, criminal complaint—those are legal routes. Copyright strikes are not meant to silence criticism."
Neither Thakur nor her representatives responded to detailed queries sent by Decode on email, WhatsApp, and phone calls to her official number.
The case draws comparisons to the ongoing dispute between India’s largest news agency ANI and YouTuber Mohak Mangal, where copyright complaints were used to remove videos that relied on short clips for criticism and reporting. The Delhi High Court allowed the videos to remain online with modifications, but YouTube had already taken several of them down. The news agency had targeted content creators who used footage from their channel for their YouTube videos.
The Mithila Mirror case differs in one key aspect: the complaints target an interview voluntarily given, a song performed on another entity's platform, and footage from a public legislative proceeding.
The Architecture Of Self-Censorship
Within days of Mithila Mirror's suspension, creators across Bihar's YouTube news ecosystem began changing their behavior.
In Patna, Darbhanga, and Madhubani, creators who run small-to-mid-sized news channels began quietly reassessing their archives. In WhatsApp groups of local journalists and YouTubers, the same question kept resurfacing: what, exactly, is safe anymore?
Tanzil Asif, who runs the hyperlocal channel Main Media with over 6.6 lakh subscribers, says that the Mithila Mirror episode exposed how vulnerable independent digital publishers are when platforms act on complaints from powerful figures without scrutiny.
“If this trend continues,” he said, “it will threaten the very existence of independent news organisations that depend entirely on platforms like YouTube for distribution.” Asif believes platforms should subject complaints from politicians and public figures to heightened manual review. “Otherwise, copyright becomes a tool to silence journalists.”
For others, the response has been more defensive than ideological.
Sandeep Kumar, who runs Bihari News—a channel with 2.81 million subscribers built over eight years—has decided to simply stop covering Maithili Thakur altogether. “We can’t afford to lose this channel,” he said.
“Ten people earn their living from it. If not covering one politician keeps us safe, that’s the choice we have to make.”
In Benipatti, Bideshwar Nath Jha, who runs BNN News Benipatti, says he deleted two videos and made two others private after the controversy broke. All four featured Thakur’s photographs in thumbnails. “We don’t have the resources to fight copyright strikes,” he said. “If something happens, our channel won’t survive.”
Even creators with relatively larger audiences say they feel exposed. Prashant Rai of Janata Junction, which has nearly 7.8 lakh subscribers, describes the situation as one where caution offers little protection. “What precaution can you take?” he asked. “There is no precaution. The only option is to go to court.”
For smaller creators, even that option doesn't exist.
What has emerged is pre-emptive self-censorship—not imposed by the state, but produced by the interaction of political power and platform governance.
The Legal Questions
Copyright expert and Supreme Court advocate BK Agarwal, along with associate advocate Ragini Tripathi, state that the three pieces of content do not constitute copyright infringement.
The YouTube notice Jha received on the copyright claim for Thakur’s interview stated that she was a minor at the time of the interview. However, advocate BK Agarwala clarified to Decode, "The question is not whether Maithili Thakur was a minor or an adult at the time of the interview. The question here is, who owns the content? In this case, she gave the interview of her own free will, and many of her interviews from when she was a minor remain on various YouTube channels.”
An interview Thakur gave to Lallantop’s YouTube channel seven years ago remains online. Videos of her from 2015, when she participated in Sony Entertainment Television’s show Indian Idol Junior are still available on YouTube channels.
“In content creation, the copyright belongs to the creator. If the content creator is working under an employer, then the copyright of the content belongs to the employer,” the lawyer told Decode.
Regarding the thumbnail from the assembly proceedings, the lawyers said, "The photo used in the thumbnail was taken from the proceedings of the assembly, which is public property.”
“How can anyone claim copyright over public property? Photos of Dr. Ambedkar, the current President, and the Prime Minister are displayed in many offices, so does that mean they hold copyright over those photos?" Agarwal asked, rhetorically.
The lawyers said that they have never seen such a “strange” case of copyright.
Under YouTube's policy, the only way to restore a channel with three strikes is to get the claimant to retract their claims or file a counter-notification that satisfies YouTube. For regional-language publishers like Mithila Mirror, there is no meaningful distinction between a temporary suspension and permanent erasure.
Jha says he remains hopeful the channel will be restored. He has had multiple rounds of communication with YouTube. Legal options are being explored.
Mithila Mirror is registered in New Delhi but operates from north Bihar. It had built a steady audience of more than 230,000 subscribers through news bulletins, vox pops, interviews and coverage of Maithili art and culture.
The matter, YouTube says, is under review.
According to YouTube, it does not adjudicate copyright ownership disputes itself, but relies on rights holders to initiate claims and on uploaders to challenge them if they believe those claims are incorrect. The platform says it is legally required to act on takedown requests once they are submitted, and that repeat copyright violations can lead to penalties, including account restrictions. On thumbnails, YouTube says that while creators can select from auto-generated images or upload their own, all thumbnails are subject to the platform’s copyright policies, as they are derived from or associated with video content.
This afternoon, YouTube reinstated the oath-taking video that got a copyright strike for its thumbnail image.
“Any politician or celebrity I interview today could send me a copyright notice tomorrow if I publish something they don’t like,” said Aditya, a YouTube creator, capturing the fear that the copyright strikes from the BJP politician have ensured.