The Delhi High Court It has banned various social media accounts and websites from abusing the personality rights of Bollywood actors Arjun Kapoorincluding selling merchandise bearing his name or likeness.On April 29, Justice Tushar Rao Gedela granted an interim injunction to protect Kapoor’s identity and publicity rights. The court also ordered Google and Meta to remove the infringing URLs and to disclose the Basic Subscriber Information (BSI) of those who manage the accounts responsible for disseminating such content.The court stated that the defendants were illegally exploiting Kapoor’s identity for financial gain. “Clearly, there is no consent or license for the exploitation of his personality/publicity rights which the plaintiff has not granted,” the Court said, adding that any unauthorized use would be a clear violation of his rights.The direction came in a lawsuit filed by Kapoor seeking protection of her identity rights. His counsel, Pravin Anand, argued that his client’s identity was being commercially misused through the sale of items such as T-shirts and posters along with the booking of unauthorized events.It also drew the court’s attention to the circulation of obscene and pornographic material online, including sexually explicit deepfake videos created by AI. After reviewing the evidence, the court ruled that an ex-parte ad-interim order was warranted, rejecting the mediators’ claim that some of the content was classified as parody or satire.“While the mediators may be right about some of these screenshots, the overwhelming number of screenshots placed on record and reviewed by this Court appear to this court to constitute, prima facie, a violation of plaintiff’s privacy/publicity rights,” he said.Regarding the issue of explicit content, Judge Gedela ordered its immediate removal, finding that the material was clearly offensive and harmful.“It is clear that the defendants who have used AI tools to create videos with explicit and disgusting sexual content are demonstrably infringing on the privacy / publicity rights of the complainant. In fact, these videos are ordinary and would clearly damage the plaintiff’s image and privacy rights, not only excessively, but also allegedly irreparably”, said the Court.The judge further acknowledged that Kapoor has built a distinct identity through his films, philanthropic work and strong presence on digital and print platforms.“All these attributes individually or cumulatively are the plaintiff’s source identifiers, and his personality/publicity rights. Any exploitation without the plaintiff’s permission or license would prove to be a violation of the plaintiff’s personality/publicity rights,” said the Court.While directing the removal of the infringing material, the court also clarified that Kapoor is free to initiate action against additional infringers that may emerge. The matter is to be judged on October 10.Earlier, the court has protected the personality rights of Abhishek and many other celebrities Aishwarya Rai BachchanAmitabh Bachchan, Nagarjuna, Karan Johar, Kumar Sanu, Salman Khan, Vivek Oberoi, Kartik Aarya among others
