Will Protect Personality Rights Of Singer Kumar Sanu: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday orally stated that it would pass an interim injunction order in a plea by Indian playback singer Kumar Sanu Bhattacharjee, seeking protection of his personality rights.

Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora was hearing the plea. Advocate Sana Raees Khan appeared for Sanu.

Court stated that the counsel for one of the defendants stated that the plaintiff had raised a grievance regarding four profiles on Facebook and Instagram, and that the 34 URLs which were provided had become unavailable.

Counsel for Google stated that the plaintiff had provided a list of infringing URLs on 10 channels. He stated that the URL pertaining to a channel was no longer available, and another one was the actual recording of an Indian Idol episode and not a AI-generated video.

Accordingly, after hearing all parties, the court remarked that it will pass an interim order protecting the personality rights of Kumar Sanu, ordering the take-down of unauthorised use of his persona.

Background

Sanu has sought protection of his personality or publicity rights, including his name, voice, vocal style and technique, vocal arrangements and interpretations, mannerism and manner of singing, image, caricature, photographs, likeness, signature and various other attributes against unauthorised use by third parties.

The suit also relates to the alleged violation of the singer's moral rights in his performances conferred upon him by virtue of section 38B of the Copyright Act, 1957.

Sanu is aggrieved by various GIFs, sound and video recordings containing his performances and voice, which bring disrepute to him and make him the subject of “unsavoury humour,” thereby violating his moral rights in his performances.

The singer is also aggrieved by content made using artificial intelligence to clone his voice, vocal style and technique, vocal arrangements and interpretations, manner of singing and morphing his face, including the making of merchandise.

“Such merchandise and audios/videos of the Plaintiff generate revenues for the Defendants, as they are uploaded and streamed on social networking websites including but not limited to Facebook, Instagram and Youtube, which generates revenue based on the number of clicks or views to a particular image/ video,” the suit states.

Apart from named defendants, the suit has also been filed against John Does- unknown individuals.

The singer states that the acts of the Defendants constitute infringement of his Personality or Publicity Rights and also amount to an attempt at false endorsements and passing off.

The suit has been filed through Advocate Sana Raees Khan.

Earlier, the Court had asked Meta and Google to inform as to why URLs bearing "morphed videos" and containing "profane language" against Sanu cannot be taken down by the Grievance Officers of the two social media intermediaries.