The Delhi High Court on Friday passed an interim order restraining unauthorised use of actor Amitabh Bachchan\u2019s voice, image, name or any other trait exclusively identifiable with him by any individual.<\/p>\n
The court\u2019s order came on a lawsuit by the veteran actor alleging exploitation of his \u201cpublicity rights as a celebrity\u201d by several individuals, including the person behind a \u201cKBC lottery\u201d to scam the public.<\/p>\n
The 80-year-old Bachchan is the host of popular TV game show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC).<\/p>\n
Justice Navin Chawla said it is undisputed that Bachchan is a well-known personality and is likely to suffer an irreparable loss and disrepute if relief is not granted at this stage.<\/p>\n
Opining that a case for relief at this stage has been made out by the actor, the court ordered, \u201cThere shall be an ad interim ex parte order of injunction\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defendants appear to be using his celebrity status for promoting their own activities without his authorisation or permission. The plaintiff is therefore likely to suffer grave irreparable harm or injury to his reputation. In fact, some of the activities complained of may also bring disrepute,\u201d the court said.<\/p>\n
The court directed telecom authorities to take action to pull down websites providing the content in violation of Bachchan\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n
It also directed telecom service providers to block access to telephone numbers circulating infringing messages.<\/p>\n
Senior advocate Harish Salve, who appeared on behalf of the actor, said the relief of injunction was sought not only against the individuals named in the lawsuit but also against \u201cjohn doe\u201d parties or unknown parties who may be exploiting Bachchan\u2019s publicity rights.
\nAdvocates Ameet Naik and Pravin Anand also appeared for Bachchan before the high court.<\/p>\n
Salve argued that besides the lottery, domain names were registered under the actor\u2019s name; there was \u201cAmitabh Bachchan Video Call\u201d service and even T-shirts bearing his photographs.<\/p>\n
In his lawsuit, Bachchan has asserted that only he exercises the \u201ccontrol over commercial utilisation of his personality, name, voice, image, likeness and other characteristics that are uniquely identifiable and associated\u201d with him and no one can \u201cutilise\u201d, \u201cmisappropriate\u201d or \u201cimitate\u201d any facet of his personality or \u201cexploit the same commercially\u201d without his consent or express authorisation.<\/p>\n
The elements of plaintiff\u2019s persona have a huge commercial value associated with them and any third party found using any of them is bound to cause confusion and deception amongst the general public, asserted the lawsuit which has sought Rs 2 crore from the defendants as damages.<\/p>\n
It has informed that one of the defendants is allegedly circulating messages on WhatsApp with the actor\u2019s image to promote \u201cKBC lotteries\u201d, which scams the public into believing that \u2018Kaun Banega Crorepati\u2019 was offering lottery prizes to the general public.<\/p>\n
Another defendant, the plea adds, is selling a general knowledge quiz book with Bachchan\u2019s image for aspirants who wish to participate in the television quiz show.<\/p>\n
In his plea seeking interim relief, Bachchan has said that due to his goodwill and reputation, he is \u201cone of the most sought-after celebrities for brand endorsements\u201d and to protect the same, he \u201censures that he endorses a product only after carrying out a thorough background check of the brand, its perception in the minds of the public and other relevant factors\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe present suit is being filed to protect the plaintiff\u2019s name, voice, image, likeness, and all other elements of the plaintiff\u2019s persona which are distinctive and the unauthorised use of which by third parties is likely to create confusion and deception amongst the public,\u201d it has further said.<\/p>\n
The matter would be heard next in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Delhi High Court on Friday passed an interim order restraining unauthorised use of actor Amitabh Bachchan\u2019s voice, image, name or any other trait exclusively identifiable with him by any individual. The court\u2019s order came on a lawsuit by the veteran actor alleging exploitation of his \u201cpublicity rights as a celebrity\u201d by several individuals, including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-latest-news","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3863,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3861\/revisions\/3863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}