Team Anand and Naik recently represented Mrs. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan before the Delhi High Court, helping her secure protection of her Personality and Publicity Rights. The key features of the order passed by the Hon’ble Court are:
- This case is part of a series of lawsuits filed by celebrities to protect and enforce their publicity rights. We now have a rich body of jurisprudence developing on this subject with almost a dozen cases decided by the Delhi High Court.
- There is a clear recognition in the order of publicity rights serving dual purposes. The first is the exclusive right to commercially exploit one’s persona and the other is the right to live with dignity i.e., the privacy aspect.
- In this case, we had evidence of the Plaintiff’s morphed images being used for pornography. This is the most egregious form of violation. Other wrongs include selling merchandise using her image, using Artificial Intelligence to impersonate her (through AI Chatbots) and duping innocent people into depositing money in her name.
- The Hon’ble Judge categorically states that the Plaintiff is one of the most celebrated personalities in the entertainment industry. Any infringement of her publicity rights would cause confusion amongst the public as to sponsorship / endorsement and also result in debasement of her goodwill and reputation.
- Apart from restraining the Defendants from infringing the Plaintiff’s publicity rights, certain Defendants were directed to file, in sealed covers, Basic Subscriber Information of the sellers / content creators, since these are generally masked.
Team: Pravin Anand, Dhruv Anand, Udita Patro, Nimrat Singh, Dhananjay Khanna
etc. whilst wrongfully claiming to be part of our firm and making false claims and allegations.