Delhi HC protects Karan Johar’s personality rights
The court passed the order in Johar’s suit seeking to protect his personality rights, asserting that his identity was being misused through artificial intelligence to create morphed images
New Delhi:
Unauthorised use of celebrity’s persona for creating obscene memes, social media posts, videos tarnishes their goodwill, the Delhi high court said, while protecting filmmaker Karan Johar’s personality rights and ordered social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube to take down such content.
A bench of justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora in her September 17 order, released on Friday, directed social media intermediaries to take down more than 100 URLs, even as Meta and Google’s lawyer opposed the same arguing that some of the content fell in the category of caricature, lampooning, satire and parodies, that are recognised as exception to the enforcement of personality rights and the same would open floodgate of litigation.
“On a prima facie assessment, it is evident that the videos, memes and social media posts available on the platforms of Defendant Nos. 7(Pinterest), 14 (Google) and 15 (Meta) contains abusive and profane words as well as innuendoes, which appear to be offensive. The said content tarnishes the reputation and goodwill of the Plaintiff affecting his brand value,” the court said in its 31-page order.
It added, “The submission of the Plaintiff that the derogatory and obscene social media videos, posts and memes would not fall within the domain of fair comment is correct and therefore the balance of convenience is in favour of the Plaintiff that such videos, posts, and memes should be taken down to protect his reputation and goodwill.”
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The court passed the order in Johar’s suit seeking to protect his personality rights, asserting that his identity was being misused through artificial intelligence to create morphed images, deepfake content, and audio-video clips in poor taste. These, Johar said, were subjecting him to unwarranted and baseless humiliation, disparagement, obscenity and ridicule.
In her order, Justice Arora also passed a blanket order barring entities from using his name, acronym “KJo” image, or voice without his consent for selling merchandise, publishing obscene or disparaging content, creating artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots using his identity, GIF’s, concluding that advancement in technology have made it easier for individuals and entities to illegally exploit celebrity personas for unearned commercial gain. This advancement coupled with the commercial value of the publicity rights, entitles celebrities to safeguard the same against misuse.
“With the availability of the advanced technology, it has become possible and easy for any individual/entity to unauthorisedly and/or illegally use, copy and imprint the personality attributes of any celebrity for unearned commercial gains. Given the commercial value of these publicity rights, a celebrity is entitled to safeguard his interest against any misuse of the personality attributes which includes his name, image, voice and likeness,” the court concluded.
The court however refused to pass an interim order regarding safeguarding the use of his signature style, “toodles” and said that the same would be considered on the next date of hearing on February 19.
In May 2024, the court safeguarded veteran actor Jackie Shroff’s personality and publicity rights, observing that unauthorised merchandise sales and distorted videos appeared to generate commercial gain through “unauthorised exploitation.”
The court had similarly restrained the misuse of actor Anil Kapoor’s name, image, voice and signature “jhakaas” catchphrase in 2023. In November 2022, the high court protected veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan’s personality and publicity rights from infringement.
The court earlier this month had also safeguarded Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan’s personality and publicity rights, concluding that unauthorised use of a celebrity’s identity not only causes commercial harm but also infringes upon their right to live with dignity.
