The Delhi High Court has decreed actor Arjun Kapoor’s suit seeking protection of his personality and publicity rights against their unauthorised commercial exploitation through online platforms, including social media and YouTube.
Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav held that the defendants had not controverted the factual averments made by the plaintiff. In the absence of written statements or affidavits disputing the documents, the Court treated the plaint’s averments as admitted, finding that no disputed question of fact required a trial.
The Court noted that the impugned links were being used without Arjun Kapoor’s consent for commercial exploitation. An earlier interim order had restrained several defendants from misusing his name, image, likeness and other identifiable attributes, including through artificial intelligence, deepfakes, face morphing and other technologies.
The Court directed the concerned authorities to take down the remaining infringing links and made the interim directions absolute against several defendants.
It also permitted Arjun Kapoor to approach the relevant social media intermediaries with details of subsequently discovered URLs or content allegedly misusing his persona. The platforms are to independently examine such requests in accordance with their respective policies.
The suit was accordingly decreed and disposed of along with the pending applications.
