Court, in an interim order, restrained various entities – e-commerce stores, AI chatbots, etc. – from misusing actor’s name, image, voice, and likeness without his consent.
Personality Rights
- It refers to the right of a person to protect his/her personality including name, voice, signature, images, or any other feature easily identified as markers of personality.
- Personality rights are not expressly mentioned in any statute in India but are traced to fall under right to privacy and right to property.
- 2 components:
- Right to publicity: Right to protect one’s image and likeness from being commercially exploited without permission.
- It is governed by statutes like Trade Marks Act, 1999 and Copyright Act, 1957.
- Right to privacy: Right to not have one’s personality represented publicly without permission.
- It is broadly governed under Article 21 of the Constitution and the Supreme Court judgment in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) Case (2017).
- Right to publicity: Right to protect one’s image and likeness from being commercially exploited without permission.
Posthumous Personality Rights
- Defamation suit can be filed under the Indian Penal Code for derogatory representation of any deceased person's reputation or their family.
- Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950 protects unauthorized use of few dignitaries’ names and symbols listed in its schedule.
Important Judicial pronouncements
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