Bombay high court passes order to protect Shatrughan Sinha’s personality rights from fake endorsements and AI misuse

Mumbai: Bombay High Court last week said "Khamosh" to the various social media, design, celebrity blogs, cartoon-sharing, and e-commerce platforms, and unknown entities online that infringe or mimic Bollywood actor Shatrughan Sinha's unique dialogue delivery style and persona for "fake endorsements", commercial motives, or that violate his personality and privacy rights. The HC passed an order to protect the name, likeness, image, and persona of actor Shatrughan Sinha, 79, from sites or people using "fabricated profiles" to impersonate him and his work for commercial exploitation.Sinha "has a unique style of dialogue delivery and is especially known for the unique manner of delivery of the term ‘Khamosh', which is widely recognised and associated with the Plaintiff (actor)," said the single-Judge bench of Justice Sharmila Deshmukh in her February 16 order.
Sinha's screen persona earned him the iconic screen name "Shotgun".The interim order, made available on Saturday, noted that the right of protection of the personality right can be prima facie traced to the provisions of passing-off under the Trade Marks Act, 1999, as well as the moral rights protected under the Copyright Act.Sinha filed a John Doe commercial suit to seek orders against unknown people and certain platforms, including a "pornographic website". Through his counsel, Hiren Kamod, he sought a permanent and mandatory injunction against Defendants to restrain the continuing infringement and unauthorised commercial exploitation of Sinha's personality rights, including his name, screen name, unique manner of delivery of dialogue, likeness, voice, distinctive performance style, mannerisms, and other identifiable attributes.The HC said, "prima facie the material on record demonstrates infringement of his personality rights by creation of infringing and fake profiles on social media platforms impersonating the Plaintiff, creation and dissemination of digitally manipulated photographs using (Sinha's) persona and AI-generated content of the Plaintiff uploaded on multiple websites online, and other publications falsely attributing the Plaintiff's persona, as also pornographic content using artificial intelligence which was tendered across the bar in a sealed envelope".Kamod sought protection of Sinha's personality rights and moral rights, as well as to restrain the act of passing-off. He submitted that Sinha's personality attributes constitute his valuable personality rights, which were unauthorisedly commercially exploited and misused in various mediums by the Defendants, and that the Defendants are also liable for committing the tort of passing-off.The actor said his "persona was unauthorisedly, unlawfully used across multiple social media platforms without his approval, and there was commercial exploitation of Plaintiff's real name, screen name, image, and other unique identifiable aspects of his identity, which constitutes serious infringement of his statutory as well as common law rights".The HC order said the actor's "personality attributes are protectable elements of the Plaintiff's personality right as well as right to publicity. The concept of personality right has gained momentum by reason of unauthorised exploitation on digital platforms and social media for commercial gain, which often results in tarnishing or damaging the personality rights of an individual, and more often of a renowned and well-known personality"."The present case is one such instance of misuse and unauthorised exploitation of the personality rights of a well-known individual," Justice Deshmukh observed.Sinha is a "well-known and renowned actor and, apart from having a substantial body of work in the Hindi film industry, which is marked with various awards and recognition being bestowed for his work and performance, is also actively involved in national and regional politics," added the Judge, noting his contributions to "many social and welfare issues" as well.WHAT ARE PERSONALITY RIGHTS?Personality rights, broadly speaking, encompass the right to exclusive use of one's own name, style, voice, personality, etc. With the advent of artificial intelligence, digital mediums were uploaded with digital forgeries, resulting in violation of personality rights. In the present case, there is sufficient material produced on record to demonstrate the violation of the Plaintiff's personality rights.WHAT HC SAID:There cannot be any justification for misutilising Shatrughan Sinha's personality for commercial exploitation, which ultimately results in dilution and tarnishing the Plaintiff's image.The creation of digital content without the authority of the actor and exploiting the same unauthorisedly violates his right.