Delhi High Court orders takedown of derogatory online content on actress Tabu

The Delhi High Court has passed an interim order directing the takedown of obscene or pornographic online content against actress Tabu, to protect her personality rights.

In the order passed on August 6, Justice Jyoti Singh has directed hte intermediaries such as Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Google, X, Reddit, ebay and GoDaddy to take down the webpages found infringing Tabu's personality rights within a period of 36 hours.

The intermediaries were also required to disclose the Basic Subscriber Information and IP log details of those who anonymously uploaded such content. This is to be done within three weeks, the Court said.

Tabu had moved the Court seeking the removal of AI-generated obscene content and the unauthorised sale of merchandise using her name or personality attributes.

She also sought action against entities involved in the unauthorised commercial use of her name, image or video clips featuring her, and those who offered false bookings for her performances at events.

In its interim order, the Court acknowledged Tabu's wide popularity, observing that this entitled her to seek protection against derogatory and false online content that misuse her name or image.

“Plaintiff (Tabu) is a world renowned and critically acclaimed and a celebrated actress, who has left a mark in the film industry, both in India and internationally, with her stellar performances over three decades. There is no gainsaying that Plaintiff’s name and moniker/stage name ‘Tabu’ and her image, voice, likeness and other attributes of her personality have acquired unique distinctiveness and are associated with her instantly by members of public," it observed.

The Court agreed with Tabu’s contention that the infringing AI-generated videos were causing irreparable harm to her goodwill, reputation and the commercial value attached to her brand endorsements.

Therefore, the Court granted Tabu interim relief by restraining the the misuse, exploitation or misappropriation of any of the actress' personality attributes.

The matter will be heard next on December 7.

Senior Advocate Swathi Sukumar with advocates Rohan Talwar, Deeksha Jani, Preksha Diwakar, Anirudh Bhatia, Jinay Jain, Rishika Aggarwal, Ritik Raghuwanshi and Anshu Tulsyan represented Tabu.

Advocates Mamta Rani Jha, Shruttima Ehersa, Aiswarya Debadarshini and Jahanvi Agarwal appeared for Google.

Advocates Varun Pathak, Radhika Roy and Ashrika Mehra appeared for Meta Platforms.

Advocates Deepak Gogia, Aadhar Nautiyal and Shiwangi Kohli appeared for X Corp.

Advocates Nitin Sharma, Angad Singh Makkar and Brinda Nagaraja appeared for eBay.

Advocates Surabhi Pande and Affan Moin appeared for Flipkart.

Advocates Ankit Parhar, Adithya Nair and Shreya Gupta appeared for Reddit.

Advocates Mrinal Ojha, Debarshi Dutta and Nikhil Gupta appeared for GoDaddy.

Advocates Kruttika Vijay, Yash Raj, Suvarna Singh and Harshitha Rathod appeared for the domain name registrar, Hosting Concepts.

[Read order]