On September 20, Delhi High Court restrained the unauthorized use of image, name, signature, voice of Anil Kapoor for commercial purposes. His nicknames such as ‘Mr India’ and ‘Majnu Bhai’ are also restricted to be used for commercial purposes.
Recently bollywood actor Anil Kapoor approached the Delhi High Court for seeking a permanent injunction restricting the infringement of his publicity and personality rights. This injunction was sought against those people, websites and social media channels at large who were using Anil Kapoor’s name, voice, signature, image or any other attribute which is exclusively related to the actor for commercial purposes.
His advocates Pravin Anand and Ameet Naik during the hearing said this case also involves use of AI through which Anil Kapoor’s style of saying “Jhakaas” is also being used. They claimed that such advertisements lead to false endorsements and passing off.
What did the court rule?
A single judge bench of Justice Pratibha gave an interim order and observed that “fame for a person can come with its own disadvantages”, and in his case “reputation and fame can transcend into damage for a person”.
The court also said as quoted by the Indian Express, “Using a person’s name, voice, dialogue and image in an illegal manner, that too for commercial purposes, cannot be permitted. The celebrity’s right of endorsement could in fact be a major source of livelihood for the celebrity. Any form of misuse or commercial use of a celebrities name, voice, persona, likeness has been shunned by the Supreme Court in the seminal judgment called the Auto Shankar case”.
Justice Pratibha also ruled that “The creation of ringtone and GIF images for commercial gains is also complete misuse. Under these circumstances, the court has no doubt in holding that the plaintiff’s (Kapoor) name, likeness, image, persona deserve to be protected not only for his own sake but also for the sake of his family and friends who would not like to see his image, name and other elements misused, especially for such tarnishing and negative use”.
Hence Anil Kapoor has won the legal battle against AI. As per the Delhi High Court, using his name, image, voice, signature in an illegal and commercial manner is completely restricted.
