New Delhi, Feb 7 (PTI) Protecting the “personality rights” of actor and entrepreneur Vivek Oberoi, the Delhi High Court has restrained several entities from misusing his name, voice and image for commercial or personal gain.
In an interim order on a lawsuit by Oberoi, Justice Tushar Rao Gedela held that considering his “well-known, popular and well-accepted personality”, irreparable loss would be caused to him if no relief was given at this stage.
Oberoi has a “copyright” over his own personality, which includes his image, likeness, voice, name and signature, and his long standing career and stellar success in films clearly demonstrate his goodwill, reputation and acceptability, observed the court.
“Thus, the plaintiff, at this stage, has a right to protect his personality apart from all his attributes from unauthorized access by unscrupulous infringers, some of whom are arrayed as defendants in the suit,” the court concluded in the order passed on February 5.
The court therefore restrained several entities from violating Oberoi’s “personality/publicity rights” by misusing his name — “Vivek Oberoi”, voice, image or other aspects of his persona that for any commercial or personal gain through the use of any technology including AI, deep fakes or face morphing.
It also restrained the creation and sharing of any products, like t-shirts and posters, bearing his personality’s attributes.
The court directed the online platforms, including YouTube, Meta Platforms and X Corp, to take down the links of all offending articles within 72 hours.
Oberoi had moved the court earlier seeking protection against the misuse of his name, image and other attributes of his persona by several entities, especially for morphed and AI-generated content.
Oberoi, in his lawsuit, said several entities were allegedly exploiting his personality rights without authorisation, which was causing incalculable loss to his goodwill and reputation.
His lawsuit said several entities were impersonating him on social media platforms, such as Instagram, by creating fake accounts using his name and images, and using artificial intelligence (AI) to create “deep fake” and morphed content having “distasteful imagery”.
“These videos often portray the plaintiff in a false setting as well as in an inappropriate scenario with other celebrities of the film industry. Such scenarios often seek to convey obvious distasteful insinuations that target plaintiffs family life as well. Such distasteful videos are bound to mislead the public into thinking that what is depicted in that video is in fact true.
“These videos are vulgar and sexually explicit in nature. What is particularly egregious is the fact that the defendants are exploiting the plaintiff’s image and creating such YouTube shorts/videos to gain traction for their videos,” it stated.
The lawsuit emphasised that in addition to his acting career, Oberoi is also a successful entrepreneur with business interests in India and Dubai.
Oberoi has “built independent commercial credibility beyond the film industry and has acquired substantial goodwill as a businessman”, and no one is entitled to misappropriate or imitate any facet of his personality, including his name, signature, voice or image, for commercial purposes without his consent.
The lawsuit also stated that certain entities were selling unauthorised merchandise, like posters, T-shirts and postcards, bearing his name and image on various e-commerce platforms.
The lawsuit prayed for a direction to restrain the offending entities from violating his personality/publicity rights.
Several public figures, like actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, her husband Abhishek Bachchan, Salman Khan, ‘Art of Living’ founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary and podcaster Raj Shamani had earlier approached the high court seeking protection of their personality and publicity rights. The court granted them interim relief. PTI ADS ZMN
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.