Delhi High Court Protects Arjun Kapoor's Personality Rights Against AI-Generated Deepfakes, Obscene Content
The Delhi High Court has passed an ad-interim injunction in favour of Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor, restraining multiple entities from unauthorized exploitation of his personality and publicity rights, including through AI-generated deepfake content and obscene material.
Justice Tushar Rao Gedela protected the personality rights of the actor, observing that a prima facie case was made out by him.
The Court noted that there was no permission or license granted by Kapoor to any of the defendants for exploitation of his personality or publicity rights.
“The tabulated depiction of various infringing activities alleged to be carried out by the defendants clearly demonstrate that these defendants are unauthorizedly misappropriating the personality and publicity rights exclusively vested with the plaintiff. It is also clear that such defendants are wilfully indulging in such infringing activities solely for the purposes of unlawful financial gains, and thereby unjustly enriching themselves,” the Court said.
Kapoor approached the Court alleging rampant misuse of his identity through various means, including unauthorized event bookings through impersonation and sale of merchandise bearing his name and image.
He was also aggrieved by AI-generated deepfake videos, including sexually explicit content and use of his identity in pornographic material online.
Ruling in his favour, Justice Gedela said that the defendants who employed AI tools to create videos containing sexually explicit and abhorrent content were demonstrably violating the personality or publicity rights of the actor.
The Court said that such videos were vulgar and clearly would dent the image and the personality rights of Kapoor, not only beyond measure, but presumably, irreparably too.
It said that such content cannot be permitted to continue to be available on any platforms in any manner whatsoever and are needed to be taken down forthwith.
Accordingly, the Court restrained the defendants and unidentified parties (John Does) from using Kapoor's name, image, likeness, or persona for any commercial or personal gain.
The defendants were also restrained from creating or disseminating content, including AI-generated deepfakes, without authorization as well as selling merchandise or hosting content that falsely suggests association with the actor.
The Court also directed intermediaries and platforms to take down infringing URLs, websites, and content identified by the actor and to disclose basic subscriber information of certain accounts and channels involved.
Title: ARJUN KAPOOR v. ARTIST BOOKING COMPANY & ORS