Balance Of Convenience Lies In His Favour: Delhi HC Protects Personality Rights Of Telugu Actor & Producer Vishnu Manchu

The Delhi High Court has provided protection to the personality rights of Telugu Actor and Producer Manchu Vishnu Vardhan Babu and granted interim injunction to him.

The Court was dealing with a suit filed by him for permanent injunction restraining defamation, infringement of copyright, misappropriation of personality/publicity rights, unfair competition, passing off, damages and rendition of accounts, etc.

A Single Bench of Justice Mini Pushkarna said, “… the plaintiff has demonstrated a prima facie case for grant of permanent injunction and in case no ex-parte ad interim injunction is granted, the plaintiff will suffer an irreparable loss. Further, the balance of convenience also lies in favour of the plaintiff, and against the defendants.”

Advocate Pravin Anand represented the plaintiff while Advocate Aditya Gupta represented the defendants.

In this case, the plaintiff, Vishnu Manchu, filed the suit to protect his name, voice, image, likeness, and all other elements of his persona which are distinctive and the unauthorized use of which by third parties is likely to create confusion and deception amongst the public. The suit also pertained 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. As an actor, the plaintiff has acted in many cinematographic films and thus, enjoys moral rights in his performances in such films. In the context of the claims in the proceedings, the defendants were extracting clips from movies or other cinematographic works which contained performances of the plaintiff and his other interviews, for the purpose of creation and communication of videos, which bring ridicule to the plaintiff.

It was submitted that the plaintiff was not informed prior to the creation and dissemination of such videos, nor has his consent was sought or secured. It was further submitted that some of the defendants were making use of artificial intelligence such as machine learning algorithms and other technology to morph/superimpose the face of the plaintiff and create images and/or audio-video clips which were not in good taste, and which made the plaintiff the subject of humiliation.

The High Court in the above context of the case, observed, “The plaintiff’s name has been found to be utilized by various parties to host pornographic videos on their websites. On account of the utilization of the name of the plaintiff to host such obscene videos, the plaintiff’s reputation, integrity and dignity are harmed since such content portrays him in a distasteful manner and subjects the plaintiff to humiliation by portraying the individual in an obscene setting.”

The Court, therefore, issued the following directions –

• Defendants (including John Does), their associates, servants, agents, affiliates, holding companies, assignees, substitutes, representatives, group entities, their subscribers, employees and/or persons claiming through them or under them and all other persons, are restrained from creating/ publishing communicating to the public/ disseminating any content, which defames the plaintiff.

• They are restrained from infringing the plaintiff’s personality rights by utilizing and/or in any manner directly and/or indirectly, using or exploiting or misappropriating the plaintiff’s personality/ publicity rights by the use of the plaintiff’s, (a) name ‘VISHNU MANCHU’, (b) voice; (c) image; (d) any other attribute which is exclusively identifiable with him, for any commercial and/or personal gain, and/or otherwise by exploiting them in any manner whatsoever, without the plaintiff’s consent and/or authorization, including, on all formats and mediums like the Metaverse / Artificial Intelligence medium or any future formats / mediums.

• They are restrained from passing off their goods and/or services as those emanating or being endorsed by the plaintiff by utilizing and/or in any manner directly and/or indirectly, using or exploiting or misappropriating the plaintiff’s personality/ publicity rights by the use of the plaintiff’s (a) name ‘VISHNU MANCHU’; (b) voice; (c) image; (d) any other attribute which is exclusively identifiable with him for any commercial and/or personal gain and/or otherwise by exploiting them in any manner whatsoever with the plaintiff’s consent and/or authorization, without plaintiff’s consent and/or authorization as also from causing dilution and tarnishment of the same

• Department of Telecommunications (“DoT”) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (“MeitY”) to suspend all links/websites as well as links/URLs.

• Defendants to take down all the infringing content uploaded by them from the concerned websites.

• In case the infringing content from the aforesaid URLs are not taken down by defendants within 48 hours, then YouTube shall take necessary steps to block access to/ suspend all the infringing content as uploaded by them.

• The plaintiff can notify the YouTube to block/ suspend all the infringing URLs that have been/are uploaded by the defendants.

• In case YouTube finds that any content is not infringing, it can write to the plaintiff.

• YouTube to provide the plaintiff with the necessary details of the defendants.

Accordingly, the High Court listed the case on January 22, 2025.

Cause Title- Manchu Vishnu Vardhan Babu Alias Vishnu Manchu v. AreBumDum & Ors.

Appearance:

Plaintiff: Advocates Pravin Anand, Jaya Negi, and Yashi Agrawal.

Defendants: Advocates Aditya Gupta and Sauhard Alung.

Click here to read/download the Order