Delhi HC grants protection to actor Nagarjuna's personality, publicity rights

The Delhi High Court has restrained various websites and online platforms from misusing or misrepresenting Telugu actor Akkineni Nagarjuna's name, image and likeness for any unauthorised merchandising, AI-generated material or pornographic content.

In an interim order passed on September 25, Justice Tejas Karia said "prima facie" it was clear that the attributes of the actor's persona, including his name and images, are being misused by various online handles/entities, without any authorisation from him.

The interim order will remain in force till January 23, when the court will next hear the matter.

The right to publicity, popularly known as personality rights, is the right to protect, control and profit from one's image, name or likeness.

"The exploitation of one's personality rights puts at risk not only their economic interests but also their right to live with dignity, potentially causing immeasurable harm to their reputation and goodwill as the adoption of the attributes such as name, image, likeness unauthorisedly will inevitably cause confusion in the minds of the members of the public regarding association with / endorsement by the plaintiff," the judge said.

The judge said that the actor was a celebrated personality in the entertainment industry and "the depiction of the plaintiff in settings that are misleading, derogatory and inappropriate will inevitably have the effect of diluting the goodwill and reputation associated with the plaintiff."

The court restrained the online entities from violating the actor's personality or moral rights, and also stopped them from passing off their goods and services in any manner that would suggest that they were endorsed by him.

The judge further restrained them from misappropriating the name 'Akkineni Nagarjuna' or 'Nagarjuna', or his image, likeness, or other attributes of his persona that are exclusively identifiable with him.

The judge further restrained the respondents from creating, sharing, disseminating any product, including clothes, or audio-visual content, images, videos, etc., for any commercial or personal gain, without the actor's consent or authorisation.

It could be "through the use of any technology including, but not limited to Artificial Intelligence, Generative Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deepfakes, Face Morphing, on any medium and format, that results in the dilution of the plaintiff's public persona".

Recently, Bollywood actors Aishwarya Bachchan and her husband Abhishek Bachchan, and filmmaker Karan Johar also approached the high court seeking protection of their personality and publicity rights, and the court granted them similar relief.

Nagarjuna's petition submitted that he was aggrieved by three infringements — pornographic websites, sale of merchandise by unauthorisedly using the actor's personality traits and various YouTube videos.

He has sought permanent injunction, damages, rendition of accounts, delivery up and other consequential reliefs for unlawful misappropriation of his personality/ publicity rights, infringement of performer's moral rights under the Copyright Act, 1957, unfair competition, passing off and defamation by the defendants.

The petition claimed that several online websites have published videos falsely linking him to terrorist organisations, promoting gambling and speculating on his private life in a defamatory manner, thereby tarnishing his reputation.

The plea said that despite multiple legal notices sent to the defendants demanding cessation of infringing activities and removal of the objectionable content, most of them have failed to respond or take any corrective action.