Delhi High Court protects personality rights of Varun Dhawan; directs takedown of AI deepfakes

The Delhi High Court has ordered takedown of various AI-generated deepfakes portraying Bollywood actor Varun Dhawan in inappropriate scenarios with female co-stars, as well as e-commerce listings unauthorisedly selling merchandise under his name.

In the order passed on May 29, Justice Jyoti Singh observed that Dhawan made out a prima facie case for grant of ex parte ad interim injunction in a suit filed by him.

The Court, thus, restrained various websites, including e-commerce platforms and social media intermediaries, from violating the publicity and personality rights of Dhawan.

"Plaintiff [Dhawan] is entitled to protection against dissemination of pornographic content as well as AI-generated images portraying him in an inappropriate scenario. Such a distasteful content is harming and damaging the reputation of the Plaintiff and may mislead the public into believing what is depicted may be true. Plaintiff’s right to restrain third parties from infringing and passing off also needs to be preserved," the Bench said.

Further, the Court directed Google, Meta Platforms and X Corporation to provide the Basic Subscriber Information (BSI) of the infringing social media users.

The social media intermediaries have been directed to take down any new infringing content communicated by Dhawan within 36 hours.

Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi, appearing for Dhawan, submitted that several online e-commerce sellers were misusing his personality traits to sell merchandise.

He also flagged that certain booking agencies were falsely and unauthorisedly claiming to engage Dhawan for performances and events.

Dhawan further sought protection from the circulation of artificial intelligence-generated pornographic content and deepfakes showing inappropriate clips with female co-stars.

In the suit, Dhawan stated that he has secured trademark registration of his name and signature. Thus, he argued that the unauthorised use of the same amounts to infringement of his rights.

The Court restrained various defendants from utilizing or exploiting or misappropriating Dhawan's name, image, voice and likeness or any other attribute of his persona, without his authorisation, for any commercial or personal gain, through the use of technology.

Further, the Court restrained the defendants from offering for sale or facilitating sale of merchandise or other articles in a manner that infringes the actor's personality rights.

Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi with advocates Pravin Anand, Ameet Naik,Madhu Gadodia, Dhruv Anand, Dhananjay Khanna, Unnati Gambani, Nimrat Singh, Bhavya Verma, Shreya Sethi, Krisna Gambhir, Pranav Nair and Vinayika Shahi appeared for Dhawan.

Advocates Tushar Gupta, Sumit Kumar Mishra, Lakhvinder Singh, Manuj Gautam and Nirbhay Saxena appeared for booking agency ‘hire4event.com’ 

[Read Order]