Delhi HC to protect Arjun Kapoor personality rights from unauthorised use

The actor approached the court alleging that his persona was being commercially exploited through merchandise such as T-shirts and mugs carrying his image.

The Delhi high court on Wednesday said it would pass orders protecting the personality rights of Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor by restraining various entities from using his name, image and identity without his consent.

Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor. (PTI)

A bench of justice Tushar Rao Gedela made the observation, even as he said that all the content related to public figures cannot be restrained unless derogatory. “When a person is in public glare, a lot of things happen. We can understand if things are disparaging and defamatory. But everything cannot come under that,” the judge remarked.

The actor approached the court alleging that his persona was being commercially exploited through merchandise such as T-shirts and mugs carrying his image.

The suit, argued by advocate Pravin Anand, further stated that several AI platforms were using generative artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to replicate Kapoor’s voice and create digital avatars and deepfake content without his consent.

The plea also pointed to instances of face morphing and synthetic voice models.

Earlier this year, the high court protected the personality rights of actor Vivek Oberoi, cricket coach Gautam Gambhir, Baba Ramdev and actor Allu Arjun.

Last year, the court granted protection to the personality and publicity rights of filmmaker Karan Johar and actors Akkineni Nagarjuna, Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn and Hrithik Roshan.

It had also extended similar protection to members of the Bachchan family, including Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.