Delhi HC passes order protecting personality rights of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

Jaggi Vasudev. File.
| Photo Credit: RAMAKRISHNA G

The Delhi High Court has passed an order protecting the personality rights, and publicity rights of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, founder of Isha Foundation, and restrained various rogue websites from misusing his personality traits by deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The court passed the interim order in favour of Mr. Vasudev in his suit seeking protection for his personality rights from infringement by rogue websites and unknown entities.

It said Mr. Vasudev had acquired uniqueness in his personality in relation to his voice, name, signature, image, likeness, vocal, articulation style, and his unique attire, looks or appearance.

The court said the objectionable content was not only abusing Mr. Vasudev’s personality rights, the defendants had gone a step further and employed modern day technology to modify his images, voice, likeness, and videos for commercial gains.

“If allowed to continue in the manner, it will soon spread like a pandemic with wide, uncontrollable repercussions, especially since it is a social media platform(s) herein happen to be the internet portal(s). If not stopped, the chances that (the wrong) message will spread like wildfire with hardly any water left to douse it,” the court said.

The court ordered the suspension of accounts and the takedown of YouTube channels that exclusively pertained to content infringing upon Mr. Vasudev’s personality rights, and directed that their basic subscriber information be disclosed.

The court directed the Department of Telecommunications, and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, to issue notifications or directions to social media platforms to block or suspend various websites, social media accounts, and channels infringing Mr. Vasudev’s exclusive rights.

It said that with the immense degree of freedom enjoyed by developers and innovators globally now, especially those intellectual property rightsholders such as Mr. Vasudev, were prone to or may be exposed to or vulnerable to the actions of the “rogue websites”, and more so if such rightsholders were not accorded proper protection from them.

“This so-called dangerous edge has become even sharper with the fast-paced evolution of certain ‘hydra-headed’ websites, which, even if blocked/ deleted, have the incredible potential to resurface in multitudes as alphanumeric or mirror websites with only minor, mechanical changes,” the court said.

“Such ‘hydra-headed‘ websites, under the garb of privacy, are able to mask their registration/contact details perfectly, making it virtually impossible to locate and contact their operators to, if necessary, demand cessation of infringing contents,” the court said in its May 30 order.