Delhi HC cracks down on deepfakes featuring Naga Chaitanya
What's the story
The Delhi High Court has granted interim relief to actor Naga Chaitanya in a case concerning the unauthorized use of his personality rights. The court ordered the removal of impugned content from online merchandise platforms, pornographic websites, and YouTube channels that exploit his name, voice, image, likeness, and other personality attributes. Justice Jyoti Singh passed this order while hearing a commercial suit filed by Chaitanya against these alleged offenders.
Legal proceedings
Chaitanya established prima facie case for injunction: Court
The court held that Chaitanya had made a prima facie case warranting an ex parte ad interim injunction. It noted that allowing these infringing activities to continue would cause irreparable harm to the actor's reputation. The court also observed that Chaitanya's personality rights extended to protecting his name, likeness, voice, and image from unauthorized use by third parties.
Actor's reputation
Court noted that unauthorized exploitation can cause commercial harm
The court acknowledged that Chaitanya is a renowned actor with over 15 years of experience in the Hindi and Telugu film industries. His name, image, and persona are valuable commercial assets built through years of professional dedication and hard work. The order also noted that unauthorized exploitation of a celebrity's persona can result in commercial harm as well as affect their privacy, dignity, and reputation.
Enforcement measures
Restraint extends to AI tools, deepfakes, AI chatbots
The court barred several defendants, along with unidentified John Doe parties, from using Chaitanya's name, image, voice, likeness, or any other aspect of his persona for commercial or personal gain without his consent. The restraint specifically extends to technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, deepfakes, AI chatbots, Generative AI, and face morphing tools. It also directed the removal of specific online listings offering products bearing his name and likeness.