Jackie Shroff moves to Delhi High Court to protect personality and publicity rights.
Hollywood actor Jackie Shroff has requested the Delhi High Court to prohibit the firms, social media platforms as well as the artificial intelligence (AI) apps from using his name, voice, image or any other attribute without his permission.
Justice Sanjeev Narula has heard the suit in some details today and summoned the defendants.
The Court declared that it will consider the case tomorrow (May 15) on the topic of interim injunction.
Justice Sanjeev Narula
Advocate Pravin Anand gave the Court his version of the story and explained that in some cases, offensive memes with his images have been made and his voice has also been used for the same purpose.
The Court learned that in some cases, Shroff’s image is being used in making pornographic material.
Anand said that Shroff was not after the prohibition of parody or satire, but he wanted the merchandising and defamatory and distorted uses of his personality to be constrained.
In his petition to the High Court, Shroff has asked protection of his names Jackie Shroff, Jackie, Jaggu Dada which is used to describe him as well as Bhidu and said that his attributes cannot be used without his consent on any platform.
He has also asked the Department of Technology and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) to ban all the links and websites that do not follow the rules and violate his personality rights.
Shroff has asked the Court to safeguard his voice, image, likeness and all the other elements of his persona which are unique and the “unauthorized use of which by third parties is likely to cause confusion and deception among the public”.
The case of Shroff prove that many social media companies, stores, social media handles and AI tools are using his attributes without his permission and they not only make money from such unauthorized use but also create confusion and damage his reputation.
He has filed a lawsuit against Google-owned Tenor and another GIF-making company Giphy and AI platforms in addition.
In addition to that, he also requested an injunction against AI tools and platforms which used his features to create, train and commercialise AI personalities.
To sum up the importance of the Plaintiff’s name, voice, image, likeness, signature, mannerisms, gestures, and other aspects of the Plaintiff’s persona, Shroff argued that any third party using any of these components would lead to confusion and deception among the public regarding the affiliation with or sponsorship of the Plaintiff.
Shroff argued that the misuse of his personality traits without his written permission for commercial purposes is subject to the restriction on the basis of the traditional concept of publicity rights and the tort of dilution, especially tarnishment.
This is more terrible when the Defendants’ actions are focused on commercially benefiting. In other words, the Plaintiff’s identity is used in a very bad and not – so good manner which damages his reputation and makes him a laughing stock, hence ruining his image.
Advocates Pravin Anand, Ameet Naik, Madhu Gadodia, Dhruv Anand and Udita from Anand and Naik were among the persons who defended Jackie Shroff.
At the end of 2022, the High Court had instructed people to refrain from infringing the personality and publicity rights of veteran Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan.
Bachchan has taken the High Court to get an omnibus order to protect his name, image, voice or any characteristic of his without his consent.
