NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has restrained various entities from using the name, image and other attributes of Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister and actor Pawan Kalyan without his authorisation.
Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora passed the interim order, effective till May 12, on Kalyan’s plea alleging exploitation of his personality rights. The petition stated that several websites were selling merchandise bearing his image without permission.
The court observed that Kalyan’s name, image, likeness or voice could not be ‘unauthorisedly’ exploited for commercial gain by the defendants using any technology, including Artificial Intelligence, deepfakes, morphing or digital editing. “Such unauthorised use of the plaintiff’s attributes by these infringing defendants, prima facie, amounts to violation of the plaintiff’s personality rights,” the judge said, while posting the matter for further hearing on May 12.
The court also directed fan accounts on social media to add a clear disclaimer stating that the content was posted by a fan account. It clarified that, subject to such a disclaimer being included in the profile description, no further takedown action would be required against these accounts.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, was directed to communicate the interim order to users operating fan accounts. The court said Meta should render such accounts inactive until the required disclaimers are added.
Kalyan had approached the court alleging that social media intermediaries and e-commerce platforms were using elements of his persona for commercial gain without authorisation. The petition claimed that some websites were impersonating him through AI-generated voice replication and deepfakes. It pointed to the sale of merchandise such as T-shirts, mugs, key chains, and wallpapers.