Delhi HC restrains unauthorised use of Anil Kapoor's personality, name and likeness for commercial use

Anil Kapoor

Delhi High Court on September 20 restrained 16 entities from unauthorisedly using  Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor's name, likeness, voice, image and any other aspect of his personality for commercial purposes.

Justice Prathiba Singh ordered domain name providers to suspend websites using Anil Kapoor's name and hand these domain names over to him. The court also directed the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) and Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology (MeitY) to take down fake videos that feature Kapoor. Court has also restrained parties from using the word 'Jhakaas' in the manner in which Kapoor uses it.

The order comes after Kapoor moved the Delhi HC seeking protection of his personality and publicity rights. Personality and publicity rights include person's name, voice, image and gesture among others. According to Kapoor, since he is a renowned actor, his voice, persona, image and likeness are niche to him.

Kapoor's lawyer Pravin Anand alleged that the actor's persona, voice, image and likeness are being misused and monetised unauthorisedly. Some instances for the misuse include using his photograph as a motivational speaker, use of his voice dialogue and name, providing facemask with his pictures, creating images and videos using AI, which are derogatory in nature among others.

Anand further argued that the ministry of  consumer affairs has proposed guidelines which seeks to protect consumers against such dark patterns, which are used to trick consumers thereby affecting their decision making.

The court on hearing the arguments observed that there can be no justification such a use of a person’s persona in an illegal manner. The court noted that celebrities also enjoy the right of privacy and the same cannot be taken away from them by such activities.

According to the court, Kapoor’s image being morphed along with other actresses is not merely offensive to him but to also other actors and under such circumstances, the court cannot turn a blind eye.

Earlier, the Delhi HC had passed similar orders in pleas filed by actors such as Amitabh Bachchan and Rajnikanth.