Actor Jackie Shroff has approached the Delhi High Court to seek protection of his personality and publicity rights. The suit has been filed against various entities using his name, photographs, voice and word "Bhidu" without his consent.
Through this suit, actor Jackie Shroff seeks direction to protect the Plaintiff's name, voice, image, likeness, and all other elements of the Plaintiff's persona which are distinctive and the unauthorized use by third parties is likely to create confusion and deception amongst the public.
The bench of Justice Sanjeev Narula on Tuesday issued a summons on the actor's suit and said it will consider the case tomorrow on the interim injunction application. The actor seeks a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from infringing the Plaintiff's personality rights and publicity rights by the use of the Plaintiff's name 'Jackie Shroff", "Jackie', 'Jaggu Dada', 'Bhidu' voice, image and any other attribute which is exclusively identifiable with him for any commercial or personal gain.
The plea asks the court to pass a decree of permanent injunction restraining Defendant Bhidu Shawarma restaurant and its associates, servants, agents, affiliates, holding companies, and representatives, from infringing the Plaintiff's registered trademark by using the same as part of its trade name 'Bhidu Shawarma & Restaurant' or any other trade name/trade mark which is deceptively similar to the Plaintiff's registered trademark numbers.
The suit also pertains to the violation of the Plaintiff's moral rights in his performances conferred upon him by virtue of section 38B of the Copyright Act, 1957. The Plaintiff, as an actor has acted in many cinematographic films and thus enjoys moral rights in his performances in such films and is entitled to restrain any third party from distorting, mutilating or making other modifications to his performance that are prejudicial to his reputation. In the context of the claims in the present proceedings, the Defendants are extracting clips of movies or other cinematographic works which contain performances of the Plaintiff, for creation, communication of graphic/ interchange formats (GIFs), etc.
The suit states that Plaintiff has not been informed prior to the creation and dissemination of such GIFs, nor has his consent been sought or secured. The Defendants, by reproducing clips containing Plaintiff's performance, and that too in a manner which brings disrepute to Plaintiff and makes him the subject of unsavoury humour, are violating his moral rights in his performances.
The misappropriation of any attribute of the Plaintiff's persona without his express permission for a commercial purpose is liable to be restrained not only on the basis of the traditional conception of publicity rights namely the exclusive right to commercially exploit one's persona but also based on the tort of dilution, more particularly tarnishment.
Recently, the Delhi High Court also restrained the unauthorised use of actor Anil Kapoor's personality or name for commercial purposes. In the year 2022, Amitabh Bachchan had also moved the Delhi HC against the illegal use of his voice and image.
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