New Delhi, February 24 The Delhi High Court has protected the personality rights of singer Jubin Nautiyal by restraining several websites and online platforms from illegally using his name or images for commercial gain without his consent.
Justice Tushar Rao Gadela was hearing the singer’s plea seeking an interim injunction against several entities, including AI platforms, from using his name, voice, vocal style and technique, mannerisms, and other attributes of his personality for unauthorized use and commercial exploitation by third parties.
In an interim order dated February 19, the court said that Nautiyal had a strong prima facie case regarding his well-known personality, and that, in the absence of an order, irreparable loss and injury could be caused to the singer.
It stated, “The damage and harm to the image and personality of the plaintiff (Nautiyal) appear to be real and present.”
The court directed multiple entities, including John Doe persons, from exploiting Nautiyal’s personality or publicity rights or any other attribute of his persona which was exclusively identifiable with him for any commercial and personal gain.
These rights, the court observed, could not be infringed via online platforms, publications, advertisements, promotional materials, merchandise, domain names, creating or using artificial intelligence voice models or voice conversion tools, synthesized voices or digital avatars, or caricatures that imitated him.
It also restrained the infringement of his rights through artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, deepfakes, face morphing, GIFs, or by any other commercial endeavour on any medium or formats including websites, the metaverse, and social media.
The court also directed the removal or blocking of content that violated his publicity rights.
The right to publicity, popularly known as personality rights, is the right to protect, control, and profit from one's image, name, or likeness.
Recently, Bollywood actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, her husband Abhishek Bachchan, her mother-in-law Jaya Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, filmmaker Karan Johar, singer Kumar Sanu, Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary, and podcaster Raj Shamani also approached the high court seeking protection of their personality and publicity rights.
The court granted them interim relief.
