Delhi High Court protects personality rights of actor Varun Dhawan, orders takedown of deepfakes

Justice Jyoti Singh

Court grants protection

• Defendants are restrained till the next date of hearing from violating plaintiff’s personality/publicity rights by using or exploiting or misappropriating plaintiff’s name, image, voice and likeness or any other attribute of his persona, without his authorisation, for any commercial and/or personal gain, through the use of technology.
• Defendants are restrained from selling, offering for sale and/or facilitating the sale of merchandise and/or any other articles in a manner that infringes his personality rights and/or amounts to passing off and/or infringes plaintiff’s registered trademarks.
• Defendants are restrained from creating, sharing, disseminating any content that is derogatory, abusive or shows the plaintiff in inappropriate scenarios through AI, generative AI, machine learning, deepfakes, AI chatbots, face morphing and/or any other mediums and formats such that it results tarnishment of plaintiff’s public persona.
• Defendants to issue necessary directions to block and disable all URLs relating to the pornographic content.
• If any fresh URLs/ posts/videos/mobile applications/links are provided by the plaintiff, which unlawfully infringe his personality/publicity rights or are in any manner abusive/derogatory and/or contain pornographic content, the same shall be taken down within 36 hours from the date of communication of the intimation.

Plea against ‘unauthorised’ use of personality rights

Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi, appearing for Varun Dhawan, submitted that the actor has earned immense goodwill and reputation in the film industry through his significant contributions to Indian cinema and is a well-known public figure.

It was contended that certain defendants were infringing the actor’s personality and publicity rights by falsely and without authorisation offering bookings for his appearances and performances. It was argued that some were allegedly selling unauthorised merchandise bearing the actor’s name, image, face and signature.

Sethi also alleged that certain defendants were publishing videos and social media posts that tarnished the plaintiff’s reputation, while some were using artificial intelligence and deepfake technology to create and circulate false and misleading images and videos depicting him, including content featuring other celebrities.

In addition, some defendants were allegedly creating and hosting pornographic content using the plaintiff’s name and image.

‘Can erode goodwill, reputation’

The court noted that Varun Dhawan is a celebrated actor of Hindi cinema with an acting career spanning over 14 years, during which he has featured in several commercially successful and critically acclaimed films. It further observed that over the course of his career, he has received numerous accolades, including Stardust Awards, IIFA Awards, Zee Cine Awards, and the GQ Men of the Year Award (India) for Entertainer of the Year on two occasions.

It noted that the actor enjoys a substantial social media presence, with 46.2 million followers on Instagram, 11.7 million followers on X (formerly Twitter), 11 million followers on Facebook, and 550,000 subscribers on YouTube.

“He has secured trademark registrations for the trademark ‘VARUN DHAWAN’ and his signatures and thus has statutory right to its exclusive use and to restrain third parties from infringing,” the court added.

The court observed that it is well settled that the sale of merchandise using the actor’s name, image, likeness and other elements of his persona for commercial gain without his consent or authorisation is unlawful.

It noted that if such merchandise is of inferior quality, it would further erode the goodwill and reputation that the plaintiff has built over the years through his hard work.

The court further held that the actor is entitled to protect his name, likeness, voice and image, which are integral elements of his persona, and no third party can use these attributes without authorisation.

It also emphasised that the plaintiff is entitled to protection against the dissemination of pornographic content and AI-generated images depicting him in inappropriate scenarios, observing that such objectionable content harms his reputation and may mislead the public into believing that the depictions are genuine.

Holding that plaintiff’s right to restrain third parties from infringing and passing off also needs to be preserved, the court passed directions granting protection to Varun Dhawan.