Delhi High Court to protect Naga Chaitanya’s personality rights amid deepfake row

The Delhi High Court on Friday issued summons in a suit filed by Telugu film actor Akkineni Naga Chaitanya seeking protection of his personality and publicity rights against alleged misuse of his name image likeness and identity across digital platforms including AIgenerated and pornographic contentJustice Jyoti Singh while hearing the matter indicated that an interim order would be passed to protect the actors rights The Court also took note of the plaintiffs request for a dynamic injunction in view of the continuing emergence of allegedly infringing content online The matter has been listed for further hearing on September 30The suit has been filed by Naga Chaitanya alleging widespread and systematic unauthorized exploitation of his personality rights by various entities and unidentified defendants through pornographic websites AIgenerated content deepfake videos defamatory material and unauthorized commercial use of his identitySenior Advocate Vaibhav Gaggar appearing for the actor submitted that one of the primary concerns relates to pornographic content and AIgenerated videos falsely depicting the actor in objectionable situations He specifically flagged content portraying the actor alongside his former wife and falsely suggesting that he had cheated on her and destroyed her careerThis is trolling this is not fair criticism Gaggar argued before the CourtHighlighting the actors stature Gaggar submitted that Naga Chaitanya is a leading figure in the Telugu film industry with a successful acting career spanning over a decade and several awards to his credit He also pointed out that the actors father Nagarjuna Akkineni had previously secured protection of his personality rights from the Delhi High CourtAccording to the plaint the actor enjoys significant goodwill and commercial recognition in India and among the global Teluguspeaking community The suit asserts that his name image voice likeness and persona possess substantial commercial value and are entitled to legal protectionThe plaint further alleges that various websites online platforms and unidentified persons have been using the actors identity in pornographic domain names webpage titles metadata search tags and video classifications thereby creating false associations between the actor and obscene contentThe suit also claims that defendants have employed artificial intelligence tools deepfake technology voicecloning software and digital manipulation techniques to create and circulate fabricated audiovisual content depicting the actor in a false defamatory and misleading manner for commercial gain and online traffic generationAccording to the pleadings the unauthorized content has caused serious harm to the actors reputation dignity privacy and public image The actor has alleged violations of his personality rights performers rights under the Copyright Act as well as infringement of his constitutional and common law rightsGaggar also informed the Court that there are several defamatory videos and posts available on YouTube concerning the actorAppearing for YouTube counsel submitted that some of the AIgenerated videos identified by the plaintiff had already been removed However it was pointed out that certain links pertained to news reports where a different legal threshold would applyDuring the hearing Justice Singh observed that while public figures are more exposed to scrutiny than ordinary individuals such exposure is not without limitsYou are in public life you are certainly more vulnerable than the rest of the people but it has its limitations the Court remarkedExamining one of the allegedly infringing links the Court observed that the content appeared to be borderlineGaggar further submitted that new infringing and pornographic content involving the actor continues to surface on a daily basis necessitating a dynamic injunction that would enable prompt action against future violations without requiring repeated court interventionThe suit states that ceaseanddesist notices and legal complaints were issued to several intermediaries and entities including online platforms and service providers However according to the plaintiff many of them either failed to respond adequately or provided only partial compliance resulting in the continued dissemination and monetization of the allegedly infringing materialAt the conclusion of the hearing the Court issued summons in the suit and indicated that it would pass an interim order protecting the plaintiffs personality rights pending further proceedingsThe matter was led by Senior Advocate Vaibhav Gaggar and briefed by Advocates Somdev Tiwari Akash Deep Gupta Siddharth C Abhishek Nair and Vansh Shrivastav on behalf of Sarvoday LegalThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove 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