Delhi High Court Protects Personality Rights Of Allu Arjun, Restrains AI Misuse & Objectionable Content

The Delhi High Court has passed an ex parte ad-interim order protecting the personality rights of Telugu actor Allu Arjun, restraining multiple entities from unauthorised commercial exploitation of his personality, including misuse through artificial intelligence tools, deepfakes and sale of infringing merchandise.

Justice Tushar Rao Gedela observed that the actor's name, image, voice, dialogue delivery, gestures and other distinctive attributes are exclusively identifiable with him and constitute protectable personality rights.

The Court passed the order in the suit filed by the actor against commercial use of his personality rights in merchandises for commercial gain without his consent.

Ruling in the actor's favour, the Court said that the highly popular dialogues and other distinctive attributes of Arjun demonstrates his iconic status.

“The aforesaid documentary evidence etc. clearly demonstrates that the unique and distinctive attributes of the plaintiff are exclusive to the plaintiff and are source identifiers of the plaintiff. The attributes such as name, appearance, voice, manner of delivery dialogues, gestures, attires, speech, signature, likeness would clearly constitute copyrights of the plaintiff over which none other than the plaintiff would have exclusive rights of exploitation,” the Court said.

It held that a strong prima facie case exists in favour of the actor, with the balance of convenience also tilting towards him. It added that irreparable harm would be caused if interim protection was not granted.

Accordingly, the Court restrained the defendants from using or exploiting the actor's name, likeness, voice or any identifiable attributes for commercial or personal gain without consent.

The defendants were also restrained from violating the actor's moral rights in performances, including through AI-generated or manipulated content.

The Court also restrained the defendants from selling or advertising goods or services using his name or deceptively similar trademarks and disseminating content, including deepfakes or AI-generated content impersonating him.

“If any website which is not primarily an infringing website is locked, suspended or blocked pursuant to the present order, it shall be at liberty to approach this Court seeking modification or clarification upon furnishing an undertaking that it does not intend to illegally disseminate content over which the plaintiff has exclusive rights,” the Court said.

Justice Gedela issued notice on the interim relief application and issued summons in the suit.

Counsel for Plaintiff: Ms. Swathi Sukmar, Sr. Advocate with, Ms. Ameet Datta, Ms. Riggima Sharma, Ms. Bidushi Handique Lale, Mr. Mukul Kochhar, Ms. Gauri Khanna, Mr. Ritil Raghuwani, Advocates

Counsel for Defendants: Mr. Shubh Kapoor, Mr. Anirudh Dusaj and Ms. Bhavyah Garg, Advocates for defendant no. 1; Mr. Varun Pathak, Ms. Sana Banyal and Ms. Nivedita Sundheer, Advocates for defendant no. 7; Mr. Aditya Gupta, Mr. Asavari Jain and Mr. Rohith Venkatesan, Advocates for defendant no. 8

Title: ALLU ARJUN v. FRANKLY RETAIL PRIVATE LIMITED & ORS

Click Here To Read Order