Summary
The Delhi High Court recently granted strong interim protection to actor and Andhra Pradesh Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan against large-scale misuse of his name, image, voice, and persona across e-commerce platforms and social media, using AI tools. It recognised celebrity personality and publicity rights as proprietary and commercially valuable, and restrained unauthorized merchandise sales, AI-generated impersonation, and misleading online content, while directing intermediaries to take down infringing links and share infringer details. This John Doe order marks an important step in jurisprudence in relation to personality rights and AI.
Facts
The Plaintiff, Mr. Konidala Pawan Kalyan, a well-known film actor and the current Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, instituted a commercial suit before the Delhi High Court seeking protection of his personality and publicity rights. He alleged large-scale, unauthorized commercial exploitation of his name, image, likeness, voice, persona, and associated identifiers (such as “Pawan Kalyan”, “Power Star”, “PSPK”) by multiple defendants.
The Defendants included:
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- John Doe / unknown entities,
- E-commerce platforms (Flipkart, Amazon, Meesho),
- Technology and social media intermediaries (Google, Meta),
- Websites and marketplaces selling merchandise or enabling AI-based impersonation (including AI voice and image generation tools), and
- Proforma government defendants (MeitY and DoT) for enforcement purposes.
The Plaintiff asserted that the Defendants were selling unauthorized merchandise, hosting misleading event listings, enabling AI-generated voice and image impersonation, and circulating manipulated or deceptive digital content, all without consent, thereby misleading the public and causing irreparable harm to his reputation and proprietary rights.
As this was an urgent matter, the Plaintiff sought ex parte ad-interim injunctions along with ancillary procedural reliefs.
Issues Analysed by the Court
The Court primarily considered the following issues at the interim stage:
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- Whether the Plaintiff, as a public figure, enjoys enforceable proprietary personality/publicity rights over his name, image, voice, likeness, and persona.
- Whether the Defendants’ activities, including sale of merchandise and AI-enabled content generation, amount to prima facie infringement of such rights.
- Whether the Plaintiff satisfied the requirements for grant of an ex parte ad-interim injunction (prima facie case, balance of convenience, and irreparable injury).
Arguments of the Parties
Plaintiff
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- The Plaintiff argued that he has acquired immense commercial goodwill and brand value over decades in cinema and public life, making his persona uniquely identifiable.
- Unauthorized use of his personality attributes for merchandise, AI-generated voices/images, misleading event listings, and online content amounted to misappropriation of personality and publicity rights, passing off, dilution, and deception.
- AI tools enabling voice replication and synthetic content falsely suggested endorsement or association, aggravating harm.
- The continued availability of infringing content would cause irreparable injury, which justified the grant of urgent interim relief.
Defendants / Intermediaries
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- e-Commerce platforms, such as Amazon and Meesho submitted that infringing links had already been taken down and, in some cases, KYC details of infringers were shared.
- Google argued that some remaining YouTube content could qualify as parody or satire, or was clearly labelled as AI-generated, and therefore should not be summarily removed.
- Meta contended that certain Instagram accounts were long-standing fan pages, not impersonation accounts, and proposed disclaimers instead of takedown.
Court’s Analysis and Order
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- The Court recognized that the Plaintiff is an undisputed public figure with substantial celebrity status, possessing enforceable proprietary rights over his personality attributes. The Court relied on precedents such as DM Entertainment v. Baby Gift House, Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India, and Jackie Shroff v. The Peppy Store, and thus reaffirmed that celebrity status confers legally protectable personality rights.
- The Court held that the unauthorized commercial use of the Plaintiff’s name, image, likeness, and voice, particularly for commercial purposes including merchandise sales and AI-based impersonation, prima facie violated his personality rights.
- It further held that the balance of convenience lay in favour of the Plaintiff, and that continued infringement would result in irreparable harm.
- Accordingly, the Court granted ex parte ad-interim injunctions restraining the infringing Defendants and John Doe entities from exploiting the Plaintiff’s personality/publicity rights in any manner, including through AI, deepfakes, and digital manipulation.
Regarding the removal and takedown of infringing content, the Court ordered as follows:
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- It directed e-commerce platforms and websites to take down/delist infringing goods and URLs within specified timelines and to share infringer KYC details.
- It restrained AI platforms from enabling generation of unauthorized AI voice, image, or persona-based content of the Plaintiff.
- It allowed social media fan accounts to continue only with mandatory disclaimers that the said pages were not officially associated with the Plaintiff, failing which platforms were to deactivate them.
- It directed intermediaries to furnish BSI and IP login details of infringing users in compliance with this order.
Further, the Court issued procedural directions for service of summons, filing of pleadings, and compliance with Order XXXIX Rule 3 CPC. The matter was listed for further proceedings, and affected third parties were permitted to approach the Court if lawful content was inadvertently impacted.
Authored by Ms. Ashwini Arun.