The Delhi High Court on September 10 granted interim injunction to Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan (plaintiff) against unauthorized commercial exploitation of his personality rights [Abhishek Bachchan v. The Bollywood Tee Shop and ors].
Justice Tejas Karia observed that unauthorised misuse of Bachchan's name and personality attributes constituted infringement causing confusion in public regarding perception of endorsement.
"The misuse of the plaintiff’s name, image, likeness and other elements of the plaintiff’s persona clearly constitutes infringement as the adoption of the aforementioned attributes such as name, image, signature, likeness, etc., without any authorization from the plaintiff, will inevitably cause confusion and create a perception of endorsement by the plaintiff," the Court stated.
Irreparable loss, damage and injury would be caused to Bachchan's economic interests, goodwill, reputation and prestige if the interim injunction is not granted immediately, the Court stated.
The Court passed the order on a plea by Bachchan seeking protection of his personality rights and to prevent misuse of his name, image, photographs, voice and performances by websites, YouTube channels and others for commercial or personal gains.
The order by the High Court mirrored the order passed by it on September 9 in favour of Bachchan's wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan who also moved the Court seeking similar reliefs.
The suit filed by Abhishek Bachchan raised concerns that his image and persona are being morphed and misused without authorisation by several online platforms, including through the sale of merchandise, wallpapers and videos with his image, the generation of AI-generated and deepfake videos on social media, etc.
Bachchan urged the Court to restrain others from infringing on his publicity and personality rights and copyrights by misappropriating unique attributes that are linked to his persona, including but not limited to his name, image, likeness, voice, signature, and performances, for any commercial or personal gain without his consent.
He also sought protection against trademark infringement, passing off, unfair competition, dilution, tarnishment of his reputation, and defamation.
Such reliefs were sought against various YouTube channels, online marketplace Etsy (Ireland), wallpaper sites and merchandise sites such as Bollywood Tee Shop.
Bachchan's counsel, advocate Pravin Anand, told the Court that the defendants were creating AI-generated videos to distort his client's image, and that even fake photos shown as being signed by him were being circulated.
Sexually objectionable material, autographs and merchandise were being sold without authorisation, the counsel said.
This was insulting and could create misunderstandings, he contended.
The Court noted the menace of the artificial intelligence and technology infringing the right to privacy.
"The use of technology to depict the Plaintiff in settings that are misleading, derogatory or inappropriate, intrudes upon the Plaintiff’s right to privacy. Such misappropriation is further aggravated by the ease with which online content can be disseminated," the order said.
It further stated that unauthorized commercial exploitation of personality rights directly impacts the economic interests as well as the dignity of the concerned individual, potentially causing irreversible injury to their reputation and goodwill. In such cases, judicial intervention becomes necessary, the Court observed.
In the present case, the Court noted that there was misuse of Bachchan's name, signature and images by the defendant entities.
"Considering the pleadings, documents and submissions made by the learned Counsel for the Plaintiff, it is clear that the attributes of the plaintiff’s persona, including his name, images and signature, are being misused by defendant Nos. 1 to 14 and 18, without any authorization from the plaintiff, by employing technological tools, including Artificial Intelligence," the Court stated.
Therefore, it restrained the defendants from using or exploiting or misappropriating (a) name ‘Abhishek Bachchan’ and acronym ‘AB’; (b) voice; (c) image and likeness; (d) performances; and (e) other attributes of his persona which are exclusively identifiable with him for any commercial and / or personal gain.
Further, the Court restrained the defendants from creating, sharing, or disseminating any product using artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, deepfakes, face morphing on any medium and format that results in dilution of Bachchan's public persona.
The defendants and Google were directed to take down, remove, disable and block the URLs highlighted in the petition within 72 hours of receiving a copy of this Order
Further, Google was directed to provide basic subscriber information, including the names, email address, contact number, IP logs and registration details of the infringing owners, operators and sellers.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology and the Department of Technology shall also issue necessary directions to block and disable all the URLs, the Court directed.
The matter will be heard next on January 15.
Abhishek Bachchan was represented by advocates Pravin Anand, Ameet Naik, Madhu Gadodia, Dhruv Anand, Udita Patro, Nimrat Singh, Deveesha Tudekar, Dhananjay Khanna, Aayushi Udani, Riya Kumar and Unnati Gambani.
Advocates Shruttima Ehersa, Rohan Ahuja, Devangini Rai, Aiswarya Debadarsini, Diya Viswanath and Jahanvi Agarwal appeared for Google.
[Read order]