Delhi High Court blocks AI commercial use of Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor's image, voice
Brands can't use the word 'Jhakaas' in the actor's classic style to promote products
The Delhi High Court on September 20 restrained various entities from using Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor's name, image, and voice for commercial purposes without his consent.
The court said that using the actor's names, voices, and images in an illegal manner, that too for commercial purposes, cannot be permitted. The concerned websites and their links shall be taken down immediately by all ISPs.
The court also directed Domain Name Registrars like Godaddy.com LLC, Dynadot LLC, and PDR Limited to immediately block and suspend domains like Anilkapoor.com and others.
The bench of Justice Prathiba M Singh while passing the order also said that the other unknown persons are also restrained from disseminating the videos. Department of Telecommunications and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology shall also issue blocking orders.
The court passed interim injunction order in Kapoor’s suit seeking protection of his personality rights.
The actor sought a permanent injunction restraining infringement of his publicity personality rights against people at large and social media channels, websites, mobile apps for using his name, voice, signature, image, or any other attribute which is exclusively identifiable with him for any commercial and/or personal gain without his consent.
Kapoor also sought protection against the misuse of his personality rights through the use of any technology including artificial intelligence, deepfakes, GIFs etc.
Advocates Pravin Anand and Ameet Naik appearing for Kapoor, during the hearing submitted that the case involves the use of generative artificial intelligence and use of dark patterns and how 'Jhakaas' word dialogue in the style of the plaintiff is being used.
Advocates Dhruv Anand, Vaishali Mittal, Madhu Gadodia, Udita Patro, Siddhant Chamola, Vibhav Mithal, Abha Shah, Sampurnaa Sanyal, Nimrat Singh, Sujoy Mukherjee, Tarini Kulkarni, Muskaan Verma from Anand and Naik, appeared for Anil Kapoor in the matter.
According to the suit, the defendant's websites and entities have been found to be engaged in various infringing activities qua the plaintiff through various platforms/ mediums.
The plaintiff through the suit submitted that it has already suffered and is likely to suffer incalculable loss to its goodwill, business and reputation on account of infringement of his publicity /personality rights by the defendants. Such acts also amount to an attempt at false endorsement.