In an ad-interim relief to Bollywood actor Suniel Shetty, the Bombay High Court on Friday restrained certain websites, social media pages and others, including John Doe (all unknown persons), from infringing or misappropriating his personality rights pending hearing plea against the misuse. The HC passed an order on the actor’s interim application for his commercial intellectual property rights infringement suit seeking takedown of the infringing content and restraining the platforms from infringing, utilising, or misappropriating the plaintiff’s personality rights and moral rights. During the hearing on Friday, the judge orally remarked “it was scary” what people can do with the unregulated use of AI on social media. The court was also informed that images of Shetty with his grandchild were also created using deep-fake technology and were uploaded on social media platforms. “The unauthorised creation/uploading of deep fake images of the plaintiff on social media platforms constitutes a grave infringement not only of his personality rights but also of his right to live with dignity. Equally, the unauthorised use of AI generated images of the plaintiff and his family members constitutes a blatant invasion of their privacy and their fundamental rights,” the HC observed. The court also directed the defendants not to pass off their goods, services, schemes, content or advertisements as emanating from or endorsed by the plaintiff. The judge also directed them to remove the infringing content from any medium pending disposal of the plea. “In the present case, I have carefully considered the infringing material brought to my notice. This infringing material discloses a clear infringement of the plaintiff’s rights and warrants urgent protection,” a single-judge bench of Justice Arif S Doctor held in its order. The court also agreed to submissions made by senior advocate Birendra Saraf for Shetty that “apart from the identifiable infringement there are several entities, many of whom are difficult to identify and trace”. It added that considering “clandestine and continuing nature of these activities and the ongoing harm”, the plaintiff has correctly added unknown persons as defendants “to represent the entire class of such unknown persons whose identities cannot be presently ascertained”. “The plaintiff has made out a strong case for the grant of ad interim relief. The balance of convenience is also entirely in favour of the Plaintiff, and if the ad-interim reliefs are not granted, the plaintiff would suffer irreparable injury and harm,” the HC held. The 64-year-old actor, who has performed in over 100 films, said that instances of infringement include “images generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI), counterfeit merchandise misappropriating the plaintiff’s image and likeness, and fraudulent claims of brand endorsements, impersonations on various social media platforms, and unauthorised advertisements using AI-generated content on platforms such as Instagram”. Saraf submitted that deep fake pictures showing Shetty are put up on the internet and his images are used for commercial purposes by real estate agencies, astrology websites, and gambling websites without any authorisation, consent, or association. He also added that there is merchandise being sold and posters of his face without any authorisation, and there was an actor’s deepfake image created and uploaded on social media platforms. The actor, through Saraf, who was briefed by advocates Janay Jain, Monisha Bhangale, Bijal Vora, Tamanna Meghrajani and Pavanaj R Hariharan of Parinam Law Associates, claimed that the infringement acts “are causing irreparable harm/injury to the plaintiff's immense goodwill which has been built carefully over the years”. Such unauthorised usage, Shetty said, “May also conflict with his existing contractual obligations that he has entered into with third-party entities, thereby exposing the plaintiff to unwarranted litigation and dilution of brand value.” The court, pending final disposal of application, also directed other defendants Meta Platforms, Inc. and X Corp (Formerly known as Twitter) to take down and remove access to the infringed material. The HC will hear the plea next on November 17.
