In a petition filed by Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan for protection of his personality rights, the Delhi High Court recently observed that, in view of the settled law and on the basis of material placed on record, prime facie, there could be no dispute that the plaintiff’s celebrity status inherently grants him proprietary rights over his personality and associated attributes and the unauthorised use of such attributes amounted to the violation of the said rights.
The defendants include Flipkart Internet Pvt. Ltd., Amazon Seller Services Pvt. Ltd., Meesho Ltd., Google LLC, Meta Platforms Inc. and several unidentified entities / individuals who are purportedly engaged in the unauthorized, illegal, and wrongful exploitation of Mr. Kalyan’s personality, publicity and privacy rights and other proprietary attributes.
The Judge stated in her interim order that while some of the defendants were using Mr. Kalyan’s name, likeness, voice, and image for selling merchandise for commercial gains either directly or through e-commerce platforms, the others were either using the plaintiff’s personality attributes for the AI software that goes into their webpages for commercial exploitation or selling merchandize without his consent.
