After Aishwarya Rai, husband Abhishek Bachchan moves Delhi High Court for protection of personality rights

Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan has moved the Delhi High Court seeking protection of his personality rights and to prevent misuse of his name, image, photographs, voice and performances by websites and YouTube channels and others for commercial or personal gains [Abhishek Bachchan v. The Bollywood Tee Shop and ors].

The plea comes close on the heels of a similar plea filed by Bachchan's wife Aishwarya Rai earlier this week.

Bachchan's plea was briefly heard today by Justice Tejas Karia, who suggested that he could pass an order directing Google to takedown links featuring content that violated Bachchan's personality and related rights, if the Court is given a list of specific URLs.

"We can ask Google to take down. You have to give URL specific to each other. If you can identify the platform, it can be easily done. YouTube, Amazon, Flipkart is mentioned in the petition. This order cannot be granted. It has to be divided defendant wise. We cannot pass an order this way," Justice Karia said.

Bachchan's counsel, advocate Pravin Anand, replied that the information sought can be provided by later today.

"Please pass over, we will divide as per defendant," he said.

Accordingly, the Court passed over the matter. It will be heard further in the afternoon, around 2.30 PM.

Notably, Justice Karia had considered the plea by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan yesterday.

At the time, the judge also hinted that he would pass an order to protect her personality rights, whereby online platforms and individuals who were found morphing her images or using her personality without authorisation would be stopped.

The suit filed by Abhishek Bachchan has raised similar concerns that his image and persona are being morphed and misused without authorisation by several online platforms, including through the sale of merchandise, wallpapers and videos with his image, the generation of AI-generated and deepfake videos on social media, etc.

Bachchan urged the Court to restrain others from infringing on his publicity and personality rights and copyrights by misappropriating unique attributes that are linked to his persona, including but not limited to his name, image, likeness, voice, signature, and performances, for any commercial or personal gain without his consent.

He also sought protection against trademark infringement, passing off, unfair competition, dilution, tarnishment of his reputation, and defamation.

Such reliefs were sought against various YouTube channels, online marketplace Etsy (Ireland), wallpaper sites and merchandise sites such as Bollywood Tee Shop.

Bachchan's counsel, Advocate Anand, today told the Court that the defendants were creating AI-generated videos to distort his client's image, and that even fake photos shown as being signed by him were being circulated.

Sexually objectionable material, autographs and merchandise were being sold without authorisation, the counsel said.

This was insulting and could create misunderstandings, he contended.

Team representing Abhishek Bachchan: Pravin Anand, Ameet Naik, Madhu Gadodia, Dhruv Anand, Udita Patro, Nimrat Singh, Deveesha Tudekar, Dhananjay Khanna, Aayushi Udani, Riya Kumar and Unnati Gambani.

[Live Coverage]