Delhi HC upholds Arjun Kapoor’s personality rights, orders takedown of content

The court held that entities using AI tools to generate sexually explicit and objectionable content involving the actor were clearly infringing his personality rights.

The Delhi high court has protected 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, in an April 29 order released later, observed that Kapoor, through years of hard work and performances in the film industry, has built an exclusive place for himself, which was being unlawfully exploited by various entities for commercial gains.

The court further held that entities using AI tools to generate sexually explicit and objectionable content involving the actor were clearly infringing his personality rights. It thus directed the immediate takedown of such material, including other infringing content, noting that it is damaging and likely to cause irreparable harm to his image.

“The plaintiff has been able to demonstrate that over the years with his hardwork and dint, and also with his performances in the film world, has created an exclusive place for himself. All these attributes individually or cumulatively are source identifiers of the plaintiff, and his personality/publicity rights. Any exploitation without permission or license of the plaintiff would demonstrably constitute infringement of plaintiff’s personality/publicity rights,” the court said.

It added, “It is also clear that such defendants are wilfully indulging in such infringing activities solely for the purposes of unlawful financial gains, and thereby unjustly enriching themselves. Clearly, there is no permission or license granted by the plaintiff to any of the defendants for exploitation of his personality/publicity rights.”

The actor had approached the court seeking protection of his personality rights, alleging that his persona was being commercially exploited through merchandise such as T-shirts and mugs bearing his image.

The suit, argued by advocate Pravin Anand, further stated that several AI platforms used generative artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to replicate his voice and create digital avatars and deepfake content without his consent. The suit also pointed to instances of face morphing and synthetic voice models.

Earlier this year, the high court had also 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.