Akshay Kumar Moves Bombay High Court To Protect His Personality Rights

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has approached the Bombay High Court seeking to protect his personality rights from being illegally commercialised by unknown entities by using deepfake images, videos, misuse of his voice and obscene blogs and Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated content.Single-judge Justice Arif Doctor on Wednesday morning, heard the submissions advanced by Senior Advocate Dr Birendra Saraf, who represented Kumar and also closed the matter for orders.An order is likely to be passed and made available this evening. He has sought a decree of permanent and mandatory John Doe injunction against several unknown entities and social media platforms and also websites, to restrain the continuing infringement and unauthorised commercial exploitation of his personality/publicity rights, including his name, screen name "Akshay Kumar", image, likeness, voice, distinctive performance style, mannerisms, and other identifiable attributes. The suit, Kumar stated arises from the large-scale misuse of his persona through AI-generated and deepfake images and videos, counterfeit merchandise, deceptive advertisements, false brand endorsements, and impersonating social media profiles on platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and various e-commerce websites. "These acts cause grave and irreparable harm to the Plaintiff's goodwill and reputation, dilute his personality/publicity rights, mislead the public, and amount to passing off, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment, thereby necessitating the present action," Saraf argued. The suit points out that Kumar is globally revered "Khiladi Kumar", a sobriquet earned through his iconic action-hero roles and daredevil stunts in over 150 films, he has worked in the last three decades.Highlighting the activities by unknown persons and entities, the suit reads, "These persons are engaged in creating, publishing, uploading, circulating, and reproducing fabricated and manipulated materials that, inter alia, impersonate the Plaintiff, including by way of edited, morphed, and/or manipulated photographs, videos, graphics, counterfeit merchandise listings, and fake endorsements or promotions. These infringing activities are occurring at a large scale and with rapidity, resulting in unbridled infringement of the Plaintiff's personality/publicity rights on a regular and extensive basis, such that it is impossible for the Plaintiff to track each instance or identify each infringer contemporaneously."In his submissions, Saraf pointed out various instances such as use of an unauthorised video wherein Kumar is seen speaking about Saint Valmiki, which was created by AI and also a trailer of a film which showed him playing the role of Uttar Pradesh's Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. "The objective of these defendants is to unlawfully exploit Plaintiffs goodwill and reputation for financial gain through advertisements, affiliate links, traffic arbitrage, product sales, phishing promotions, dubious products or schemes, and other monetization strategies," it was argued. Thus, Kumar has urged the court to restrain such unauthorised use of his images, videos, voice etc.Appearance: Dr. Birendra Saraf, Sr. Advocate, Advocate Janay Jain, Advocate Monisha Mane Bhangale along with Advocate Bijal Vora, Advocate Chandragupta Patil

Akshay Kumar Moves Bombay High Court To Protect His Personality Rights

Narsi Benwal

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