The Delhi High Court granted a restraining order against the unauthorized use of Actor Anil Kapoor’s personality rights. The actor had filed a suit to protect his own name, image, likeness, persona, voice, and several other aspects of his personality from misuse on the internet.
Brief Facts:
The plaintiff in the case, Anil Kapoor, claimed that he is one of the most recognized, acclaimed, and successful actors in India, having appeared in over 100 films, television shows, online series, and advertisements. He is also a recipient of several prestigious awards which made him a household name in India.
The plaintiff claimed that the defendants infringed upon his personality rights including right to publicity and claims of infringement of copyright in the dialogue, image, and other related works were made too. Finally, the plaintiff argued that the defendant also violated his common law rights such as the right to be protected against passing off, dilution, and unfair competition.
The defendants were using various aspects of the plaintiff's persona and exploiting them by posting and collecting fees based on images of him attending an event as a motivational speaker. The defendants also employed artificial intelligence to generate images and movies that were exceedingly insulting not only to the plaintiff but also to other actresses. It was further claimed that the defendants were creating and disseminating fake pornographic videos to make money.
The defendants were collecting cash, fees, and other monetary benefits by selling various items with Plaintiff's image, likeness, and other components of his character on a wide number of these websites.
Contentions of the Petitioner:
It was argued that in addition to having significant commercial value, the plaintiff’s name and persona should be safeguarded from misuse and defamation online. In effect, he requested protection for his personality rights, publicity rights, and aspects of his persona like his name, voice, photograph, image, manner of speaking, dialogue delivery, gestures, and signatures.
The plaintiff further asserts that he is responsible for popularising the phrase "Jhakaas," a Marathi slang that may be translated into English as "fantastic". A review of the press articles and videos would demonstrate that the plaintiff's upbeat and passionate demeanour is only associated with the way he says the spoken phrase while speaking a dialogue.
Observations of the Court:
The Court noted that reputation and fame can transcend into damaging various rights of a person including their right to livelihood, privacy, and right to live with dignity within a social structure, etc.
The Court noted that a celebrity's right of endorsement would in fact be a major source of income for the celebrity, which cannot be destroyed by allowing the unlawful dissemination and sale of merchandise bearing the face or attributes of their persona on it without their lawful authorization. The Court pointed out that dilution, tarnishment, and blurring are all actionable torts which the plaintiff would have to be protected against.
The Court perused the proposed guidelines titled 'Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns 2023' ('Draft Guidelines') issued by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Government of India under Section 18 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, seeking to protect consumers from what is commonly known as "dark patterns." Deceptive online practices aimed to mislead and confuse consumers, as well as sabotage or impair their decision-making abilities, are examples of such dark patterns.
The Decision of the Court:
The court restrained the defendants from using the plaintiff's name, likeness, image, voice, personality, or any other aspects of his persona to create any merchandise or ringtones, or in any other way misusing the said attributes using technological tools like artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep fakes, face morphing, GIFs, either for monetary gain or commercial purposes which may result in violation of the plaintiff’s rights.
Case Title: Anil Kapoor vs. Simply Life India and Ors.
Coram: Hon’ble Justice Pratibha M. Singh
Case No.: CS(COMM) 652/2023
Advocate for the Petitioner: Mr. Pravin Anand, Mr. Ameet Naik, Ms. Vaishali Mittal, Ms. Madhu Gadodia, Mr. Dhruv Anand, Ms. Udita Patro, Mr. Vibhav Mitthal, Ms. Nimrat Singh, Ms. Sampurna Sanyal, Ms. Abha Shah, Ms. Sujoy Mukherjee, Ms. Tarini Kulkarni, Ms. Muskkaan Verma & Mr. Siddhant Chamola,
Advocate for the Respondents: Mr. Debarshi Dutta, Mr. Mrinal Ojha, Mr. Anand Raja, Ms Tanya
Chaudhry, Mr. Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar, CGSC, with Mr. Srish Kumar Mishra, Mr. Sagar Mehlawat, Mr. Alexander Mathai Paikaday, Mr. M Sriram and Mr. Krishnan V.,
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