Arijit Singh vs Codible Ventures Llp

jsn IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY JITENDRA Digitally signed by JITENDRA SHANKAR ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION SHANKAR NIJASURE NIJASURE Date: 2024.07.29 18:23:27 IN ITS COMMERCIAL DIVISION +0530

INTERIM APPLICATION (L) NO.23560 OF 2024 IN COM IPR SUIT (L) NO.23443 OF 2024

Arijit Singh ...Applicant / Plaintiff

Versus

Codible Ventures LLP and Ors. ...Defendants

---------- Hiren Kamod, Prem Khullar, Neha Iyer, Vaibhav Keni and Priyanka Joshi i/b. Legasis Partners for the Applicant / Plaintiff. ----------

CORAM : R.I. CHAGLA J. DATE : 26TH JULY, 2024. ORDER :

1. At the outset, Mr. Kamod, Ld. Advocate for the Plaintiff,

tendered a draft amendment seeking to make some corrections

to the Plaint, as more particularly set out in the draft

amendment. In the interest of justice, the amendment is

allowed. The draft amendment is taken on record and marked as

'X' for identification. Reverification is dispensed with. The

amendments should be carried out within two weeks from the

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date when this order is made available.

2. Mr. Kamod seeks to move without notice to the Defendants for

the reasons set out in paragraph 60 of the Plaint. I find that

sufficient averments and disclosures are made in the Plaint to

sustain the ex-parte application.

3. In the present suit, the Plaintiff is seeking protection of his

personality rights viz. his own name, voice, signatures,

photograph, image, caricature, likeness, persona, and various

other attributes of his personality against unauthorized /

unlicensed commercial exploitation, misuse of all hues thereof.

The suit also pertains to the violation of the Plaintiff's moral

rights in his performances conferred upon him by virtue of

Section 38-B of the Copyright Act, 1957.

4. It is stated that the Plaintiff hails from a small town named

Murshidabad, in West Bengal, and has had humble beginnings.

It is stated that the Plaintiff had immense passion for music from

a very young age, leading to his journey from being a contestant

on a musical reality TV show "Fame Gurukul", to a celebrated

playback singer today. It is stated that today, the Plaintiff is one

of the most celebrated, acclaimed and successful singers / artists

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in the world. It is stated that the Plaintiff is recognized as a

cultural icon globally and has been acclaimed as one of the

foremost singers worldwide. The Plaintiff's music appeals to a

broad audience, across various age groups and demographics. It

is stated that the Plaintiff has emerged as the most sought-after

playback singers in the Indian music industry.

5. It is stated that the Plaintiff has achieved immense success,

goodwill and reputation as a singer due to his notable

contributions to the music industry in India as well as abroad. It

is stated that the Plaintiff's repertoire spans across romantic

ballads, Sufi renditions, peppy party tracks, and everything in

between. Some of the Plaintiff's most notable songs, such as

"Tum Hi Ho" from the movie "Aashiqui 2", "Channa Mereya"

from the movie "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil", "Raabta" from the movie

"Agent Vinod", "Kesariya" from the movie "Brahmastra" have

become chart-toppers. A list of songs which have been sung by

the Plaintiff is at Exhibit "A" to the Plaint. Screenshots /

printouts from streaming platforms showing particulars of the

videos / sound recordings forming part of the Plaintiff's

repertoire as available on various platforms are at Exhibit "A-1"

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to the Plaint. Details as available online / Wikipedia page in

respect of the Plaintiff's career are at Exhibit "A-2" to the Plaint.

A pen drive containing the Plaintiff's voice recordings / songs /

repertoire is at Exhibit "A-3" to the Plaint.

6. It is stated that the Plaintiff, through his extraordinary

contributions and accomplishments, has earned a tremendous

reputation and widespread goodwill amongst the members of

the general public and in the Indian music industry. It is stated

that over the course of his extensive career spanning several

years, he has earned tremendous popularity and fandom from

both the industry and audiences alike and has also solidified his

standing as a prominent figure in the music industry.

Screenshots / extracts / pages of the Plaintiff's social media

accounts on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly

known as Twitter) and YouTube are at Exhibit "B-1" to the

Plaint. Printouts of various digital articles on the Plaintiff are at

Exhibit "B" to the Plaint. Printouts of webpages from

https://www.forbesindia.com/ showing the Plaintiff's name

amongst the list of celebrities on the Celebrity 100 list for the

years 2017, 2018 and 2019 are at Exhibit "C" to the Plaint.

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Printouts of digital articles covering the story of the Plaintiff

topping the charts on the music platform "Spotify" are at Exhibit

"C-1" to the Plaint. Printouts of webpages from

https://www.concertarchives.org/bands/ showing the list of

tours and concerts done by the Plaintiff are at Exhibit "C-2" to

the Plaint. A list of awards won by the Plaintiff is at Exhibit "D"

to the Plaint. Screenshots / pages / articles available online

evincing various awards won by the Plaintiff are at Exhibit "D-1"

to the Plaint. Printouts of webpages from the website hosted on

https://www.tatwamasi.info/ showing the activities of the

Plaintiff's Tatwamasi Foundation are at Exhibit "E" to the Plaint.

7. It is stated that the protectable facets of the Plaintiff's

personality right and publicity rights, that are the subject matter

of the present suit include the following:

(a)the Plaintiff's name;

(b)the Plaintiff's voice / vocal style and technique / vocal

arrangements and interpretations;

(c) the Plaintiff's mannerism / manner of singing;

(d) the Plaintiff's image / photograph / caricature and his

likeness; and

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(e)the Plaintiff's signature.

At paragraphs 18 to 24 of the Plaint, the Plaintiff has described

in great detail the manner in which the aforesaid facets of the

Plaintiff's personality rights have come to be exclusively

associated with him.

8. It is stated that as a well-known singer and celebrity, the Plaintiff

holds the right to command and control the use of his

personality traits since the same form part of his exclusive

Personality Rights and Publicity Rights. It is stated that the

misappropriation of any attribute of the Plaintiff's personality

traits without his express permission for a commercial purpose is

liable to be restrained not only on the basis of the publicity

rights namely the exclusive right to commercially exploit one's

personality but also on the basis of the tort of dilution, more

particularly, tarnishment. It is further stated that any

unauthorized distortion, mutilation, or other modification, or

dissemination of the Plaintiff's performances / voice or video

recordings thereof, causing prejudice/harm to his reputation,

would amount to a violation of the Plaintiff's moral rights in his

performances under Sections 38-B of the Copyright Act, 1957.

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9. According to the Plaintiff, the infringing activities of the

Defendants that necessitated the filing of the present Suit are as

under:

A. Artificial Intelligence (AI) models / tools to synthesize

artificial sound recordings of the Plaintiff's voice

(i) Defendant Nos. 1 to 8 are Artificial Intelligence platforms

and / or their owners / founders / managers / operators as

also Promoters that utilize sophisticated algorithms to

create audio and visual content inter-alia

mimicking/reproducing the features, such as the Plaintiff's

name, voice, mannerism / manner of singing, photograph,

image, likeness, persona, and other attributes of his

personality. It is stated that the Defendants Nos. 1 to 8 are

deliberately using the Plaintiff's personality traits to ride

upon the Plaintiff's goodwill and reputation.

(ii) Defendant No.3 operates an AI platform which allows

conversion of any speech or voice recording or audio file

inter-alia into the Plaintiff's voice by using Real Voice

Cloning (RVC) method. It is stated that a data set consisting

of 456 songs from the Plaintiff's repertoire are

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unauthorizedly uploaded onto the AI Platform of Defendant

No. 3 for the purposes of enabling any person to convert

any text / speech / voice recording / audio file to the

Plaintiff's AI voice version. It is stated that one of the

founders of the Defendant No. 2 has uploaded a video on

the Defendant No. 2's social media channel on YouTube,

wherein he is promoting / advertising a step wise guideline

for unauthorized conversion of any text or speech or voice

recording or audio file inter-alia into the Plaintiff's voice by

using the AI platform of Defendant No.3. In this Impugned

Video 1, the audience / members of the public are urged to

use the steps demonstrated in the video to convert their

own voice and / or any sound recording and / or song of

their choice to the voice of their desired celebrity including

inter alia the Plaintiff by using the platform of Defendant

No.3. A copy of the Impugned Video 1 using the Plaintiff's

personality traits as uploaded by the Defendant No. 2 on its

YouTube channel is filed in a pen-drive annexed as Exhibit

"H" to the Plaint. In the Impugned Video 2 uploaded on a

third party's channel on YouTube (as more particularly

provided at paragraph 32(I)(vii) of the Plaint), the said

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founder of the Defendant No. 2 once again demonstrates,

promotes and advertises a stepwise guideline as mentioned

for the Impugned Video 1 to unauthorizedly convert text,

speech, sound recordings and / or songs to the Plaintiff's

voice by using the AI platform of Defendant No.3. The

relevant averments in respect of Defendant Nos. 1 to 3 are

at paragraphs 32(I)(i) to 32(I)(x) of the Plaint. The

documents, screenshots and videos in support thereof are

at Exhibits "G" to "K-3" to the Plaint.

(iii) It is stated that the Defendant No. 4, is an AI platform

operated through the website, i.e., www.jammable.com

(formerly www.voicify.ai), for creating music using AI

models of well-known singers / celebrity, etc. and appears

to be founded by the Defendant No. 5. It is stated that AI

Voice Models with the Plaintiff's name and photographs

have been created on the website of the Defendant No. 4,

which can be accessed at

https://www.jammable.com/models?q=arijit%20singh

(formerly on www.voicify.ai). On this website, by providing

any YouTube link or audio file, the Defendant No. 4's

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website converts it to the Plaintiff's AI voice and results /

output. The Impugned Video 3 evincing the above is stored

electronically in a pen-drive filed along with the Plaint at

Exhibit "M". Screenshots from the website i.e.

www.jammable.com are at Exhibit "M" to the Plaint.

(iv) It is stated that the Defendant No. 6 operates the AI

platforms through the websites i.e., www.topmediai.com

and https://filme.imyfone.com as per the contact us pages

at https://www.topmediai.com/contact-us/ and

https://www.imyfone.com/company/contact-us/,

respectively. It is stated that on the website

www.topmediai.com, there is a blog post / article on how

to use their portal for text / speech / voice conversion to

Plaintiff's voice, which can be found at

https://www.topmediai.com/text-speaker/arijit-singh-

voice/. It is stated that apart from this blog post, the said

website also directs the user to

https://www.topmediai.com/text-to-speech/, where any

text/ speech or voice can be converted into the Plaintiff's AI

voice. Screenshots from the website, i.e.,

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https://www.topmediai.com/text-to-speech/ and a video of

the screen recording from the said website in a pen drive,

evincing the above are at Exhibit "O" to the Plaint.

(v) It is stated that Defendant No. 6's website

https://filme.imyfone.com, has a page on how to convert

text or speech / voice to Plaintiff's AI voice which can be

found at https://filme.imyfone.com/voice-change/arijit-

singh-voice/. It is stated that apart from this page, the said

website also directs the user to AI platforms i.e., voxbox

and magic mic, where any text/ speech or voice can be

converted into the Plaintiff's AI voice. Screenshots of the

website, i.e., https://filme.imyfone.com are at Exhibit "P"

to the Plaint Sand screenshots from the page

https://filme.imyfone.com/voice-change/arijit-singh-voice/

and a video of the screen recording from the said website in

a pen drive are at Exhibit "P-1" to the Plaint.

(vi) It is stated that the Defendant No. 7 is a company which

inter-alia produces music and conducts modules / courses

and uses AI tools for the same such as Defendant No. 8's

portal, for creating music using AI models of well-known

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singers / celebrity, etc. It is stated that the Impugned Video

4 uploaded on the Defendant No. 7's YouTube channel

"Basslila" provides a tutorial for members of the public to

convert text or speech / voice to Plaintiff's AI voice and

unauthorizedly uses deepfake and face morphing

technology to create the Impugned Video 4 which uses,

imitates and misappropriates for commercial gain, the

Plaintiff's name, voice, mannerism / manner of singing,

image, likeness, persona, without the Plaintiff's consent. An

electronic copy of the Impugned Video 4 is stored in a pen-

drive filed at Exhibit "Q" to the Plaint. Printouts of other

relevant webpages are at Exhibits "Q-1" to "Q-3" to the

Plaint.

B. Falsely representing an association with the Plaintiff

(i) My attention is drawn to the averments in respect of the

Defendant No. 9 which are at paragraph 32(V)(i) of the

Plaint and documents in support thereof at Exhibit "R" to

the Plaint. It is stated that the Defendant No. 9 is a

restaurant / pub which, as it appears, hosted an event in

Bengaluru, Karnataka by unauthorizedly using for

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commercial gain, the Plaintiff's name and image.

(ii) My attention is then drawn to the averments in respect of

the Defendant No. 37 which are at paragraph 32(IX)(i) of

the Plaint and documents in support thereof at Exhibit "V"

to the Plaint. It is stated that the Defendant No. 37 invited

its users to sign up for a music event taking place in a

virtual reality city hosted the website www.maicity.io. Upon

signing up for the Defendant No. 37's event, the name and

image / likeness of the Plaintiff was broadcasted /

advertised / displayed to users so as to misrepresent to

such users that the Plaintiff would be performing at

Defendant No. 37's music event and / or that the Plaintiff

had endorsed the Defendant No. 37's music event.

C. Sale of Merchandise bearing the Plaintiff's name, image,

likeness and caricature

(i) Mr. Kamod draws my attention to the averments in respect

of the Defendant Nos. 11 to 23 which are at paragraph

32(VII)(i) to (xi) of the Plaint and documents in support

thereof at Exhibits "T" to "T-12" to the Plaint. It is stated

that the Defendant Nos. 11 to 23 are commercially

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exploiting the Plaintiff's publicity rights, goodwill and

reputation i.e. by advertising, promoting and offering for

sale various merchandise such as posters, caricatures,

portraits, t-shirts / clothing, framed photographs, guitar

tabs, face-masks, phone cases, pillows, bottles, hoodies,

sweatshirts, greeting cards, mugs, pins, magnets, spiral

notebook, tote bags and zipper pouches bearing the

Plaintiff's name, image, photograph and / or likeness on

various e-commerce websites / platforms viz.

www.amazon.in, www.flipkart.com, www.desertcart.ae,

www.kreateworld.in, www.thebong.in, www.prints4u.net,

www.swagshirts99.com, www.meesho.com and

www.redbubble.com.

D. Platforms to create, store, search for and share Graphic

Interchange Format files (GIFs) in respect of the Plaintiff

(i) My attention is drawn to the averments in respect of the

Defendant Nos. 24 and 25 at paragraph 32(VIII) of the

Plaint and documents in support thereof at Exhibits "U" to

"U-2" to the Plaint. It is stated that the Defendant Nos. 24

and 25 are allowing their users / members of the general

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public to create, store, search for and share GIFs

comprising of short video recordings of the Plaintiff's

performances which also exploit the Plaintiff's image,

likeness and persona. It is stated that the Defendant Nos.

24 and 25 are unauthorizedly commercially exploiting the

Plaintiff's name, image, photograph / caricature, likeness,

goodwill and reputation to make undue profits for

themselves. Further, the unauthorised and uncontrolled

dissemination and use of the GIFs bearing the Plaintiff's

image, likeness and persona through the Defendant Nos. 24

and 25's platforms has subjected the Plaintiff to ridicule,

embarrassment and humiliation thereby prejudicially

affecting his reputation.

E. Infringing domain names

(i) It is stated that certain unknown entities have registered

the domain names arijitsingh.com and arijitsingh.in

containing the whole of the Plaintiff's name. It is stated

that upon accessing the website hosted on arijitsingh.com,

the webpage redirects to https://goid.com/app/home

which appears to be a third-party website. There is no

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website available on arijitsingh.in. Printouts from Whois

showing the particulars of the domain names

arijitsingh.com and arijitsingh.in are at Exhibit W to the

Plaint which show that Defendant Nos. 26/27 and 30 are

the Registrar of the said domain names.

10. It is stated that the Defendant Nos.26/27 are the registrars of

www.100xengineers.com and arijitsingh.com, Defendant No. 28

is the registrar of www.jammable.com (formerly www.voicify.ai),

Defendant No. 29 is the registrar of www.topmediai.com,

www.filme.imyfone.com, and www.huggingface.co, Defendant

No. 30 is the registrar of arijitsingh.in. and Defendant No. 31 is

the registrar of www.audimee.com.

11. It is stated that the Defendant Nos. 32 is the owner / operator of

the cloud data storage platform hosted on the domain name

www.drive.google.com, the website hosted on

www.docs.google.com and the video streaming platform hosted

on www.youtube.com used by the Defendant Nos. 1, 2 and 7 to

store and share their files / data and the Impugned Videos. It is

stated that the Defendant Nos. 33 to 36 are the owners of the e-

commerce platforms hosted on www.amazon.in,

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www.flipkart.com, www.meesho.com, and www.redbubble.com,

respectively, on which the Defendant Nos. 11 to 23 are listing

their impugned goods bearing the Plaintiff's name / image /

photograph / likeness / caricature. For the purposes of the

present suit, the reliefs sought by the Plaintiff against these

Defendant Nos. 32 to 36 are limited to disclosure of the

particulars of the Defendant Nos. 1 to 25, 37 and 38, and take

down / removal of the infringing links / listings on their

respective platforms.

12. Mr. Kamod submits that the aforesaid instances of violation of

the Plaintiff's personality rights are not exhaustive and that in

addition to the above, there are several entities / persons who

are operating in a clandestine manner without a clear disclosure

of their names, address and other details. He submits that the

Defendants whose details are available with the Plaintiff are

being impleaded in their named capacity, while the Defendants

who have taken steps to ensure that their details are not freely

available to the public, are being impleaded as Defendant No. 38

viz."Ashok Kumar" or "John Doe". He further submits that at this

ex-parte stage, the Plaintiff is not pressing for any reliefs against

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the Defendant No. 10.

13. Mr. Kamod further submits that the Defendant Nos.3 to 8 appear

to be in the business of providing means and tools to their

customers to unauthorizedly create AI generated voice models of

celebrities and popular fictional characters. He submits that the

Defendant Nos. 9, 11 to 25 are unauthorizedly commercially

exploiting the Plaintiff's personality traits namely, his name,

image, photograph / caricature and likeness on various

merchandise. He submits that these Defendants are misusing

and exploiting the Plaintiff's personality traits for personal and

commercial gain at the expense of the Plaintiff's rights. He

submits that permitting the Defendants to continue exploit /

violate the Plaintiff's personality / publicity rights, without

Plaintiff's consent also jeopardizes the Plaintiff's career as a

performer / singer and his status of a celebrity. He submits that

in so far as acts of Defendant Nos.1,2 and 7 are concerned, the

act of creating and disseminating videos (by using the name,

photograph etc. of the Plaintiff) that instruct individuals on how

to use unauthorized AI models to replicate a celebrity's voice

such as Plaintiff without his consent cannot be shielded under

the right of freedom of speech and expression. He submits that

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unless reliefs as prayed for are granted, grave and irreparable

loss and injury will be caused to the Plaintiff, and monetary

compensation will not be an adequate relief.

14. In support of his submissions, Mr. Kamod relied upon the

following decisions:

a. Karan Johar (Also known as Rahul Kumar Johar) v. Indian

Pride Advisory Pvt. Ltd. & Ors., Order dated 13 th June 2024

in Interim Application (L) No.17865 of 2024 in Commercial

IPR Suit (L) No.17863 of 2024,

b. Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India, 2023 SCC OnLine Del

6914,

c. Amitabh Bachchan v. Rajat Nagi, (2022) 6 HCC (Del) 641,

d. D.M. Entertainment (P) Ltd. v. Baby Gift House, 2010 SCC

OnLine Del 4790, and

e. Applause Entertainment Private Limited v. Meta Platforms

Inc. and others, Order dated 13 th June 2024 in Interim

Application (L) No.17865 of 2024 in Commercial IPR Suit

(L) No.17863 of 2024.

15. I have heard Mr. Kamod at length, and I have perused the

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documents on record. I have also seen some of the videos /

recordings stored on the per-drive annexed along with the

Plaint. Prima facie, I am convinced that the documents on

record establish that the Plaintiff in a notable singer / performer

in India who has gained immense goodwill and reputation over

the course of a very successful career and has acquired a

celebrity status in India.

16. It is now well-settled that celebrities are entitled to protection of

the facets of their personality such as their name, images,

likeness, voice, signature, etc. against unauthorized commercial

exploitation by third parties. Recently, this Court in Karan Johar

(Also known as Rahul Kumar Johar) v. Indian Pride Advisory

Pvt. Ltd. & Ors. (supra) has held that personality / publicity

rights are vested in celebrities and the unauthorized use of the

name or other persona attributes of celebrities would amount to

violation of their valuable personality rights and right to

publicity. In this regard it would also be relevant to consider the

following observations of the Delhi High Court in Anil Kapoor v.

Simply Life India, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 6914:

"40. The celebrity's right of endorsement would in fact be a major source of livelihood for the celebrity, which

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cannot be destroyed completely by permitting unlawful dissemination and sale of merchandise such as t-shirts, magnets, key chains, cups, stickers, masks, etc. bearing the face or attributes of their persona on it without their lawful authorisation.

41. Moreover, any form of misuse or commercial use of a celebrity's name, voice, persona, likeness has also been disapproved by the Supreme Court in the seminal judgment of R. Rajagopal v. State of T.N., (1994) 6 SCC 632, famously called as the 'Auto Shankar case'. The relevant extracts of the same are set out below:

"9. The right to privacy as an independent and distinctive concept originated in the field of Tort law, under which a new cause of action for damages resulting from unlawful invasion of privacy was recognised. This right has two aspects which are but two faces of the same coin -- (1) the general law of privacy which affords a tort action for damages resulting from an unlawful invasion of privacy and (2) the constitutional recognition given to the right to privacy which protects personal privacy against unlawful governmental invasion. The first aspect of this right must be said to have been violated where, for example, a person's name or likeness is used, without his consent, for advertising -- or non-advertising -- purposes or for that matter, his life story is written -- whether laudatory or otherwise -- and published without his consent as explained hereinafter [...] .....

26. We may now summarise the broad principles flowing from the above discussion:

(1) The right to privacy is implicit in the right to life and liberty guaranteed to the citizens of this country by Article 21. It is a "right to be let alone". A citizen has a right

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to safeguard the privacy of his own, his family, marriage, procreation, motherhood, child-bearing and education among other matters. None can publish anything concerning the above matters without his consent -- whether truthful or otherwise and whether laudatory or critical. If he does so, he would be violating the right to privacy of the person concerned and would be liable in an action for damages. Position may, however, be different, if a person voluntarily thrusts himself into controversy or voluntarily invites or raises a controversy. (2) The rule aforesaid is subject to the exception, that any publication concerning the aforesaid aspects becomes unobjectionable if such publication is based upon public records including court records. This is for the reason that once a matter becomes a matter of public record, the right to privacy no longer subsists and it becomes a legitimate subject for comment by press and media among others. We are, however, of the opinion that in the interests of decency [Article 19(2)] an exception must be carved out to this rule, viz., a female who is the victim of a sexual assault, kidnap, abduction or a like offence should not further be subjected to the indignity of her name and the incident being publicised in press/media.

(3)........"

42. The technological tools that are now freely available make it possible for any illegal and unauthorised user to use, produce or imitate any celebrity's persona, by using any tools including Artificial Intelligence. The celebrity enjoys the right of privacy, and does not wish that his or her image, voice, likeness is portrayed in a dark or grim manner, as portrayed on the porn websites. Moreover, the Plaintiff's image is being morphed along with other

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actresses in videos and images generated in a manner, which are not merely offensive or derogatory to the Plaintiff, but also to such other third-party celebrities and actresses.

43. The Court cannot turn a blind eye to such misuse of a personality's name and other elements of his persona. Dilution, tarnishment, blurring are all actionable torts which the Plaintiff would have to be protected against.

44. Even the domain names that have been registered are just being squatted upon, and there can be no reason why the same could be allowed to be squatted upon. The creation of ringtones and GIF images for commercial gains would also be a complete misuse of Plaintiff's rights.

45. Under these circumstances, this Court has no doubt in holding that the Plaintiff's name, likeness, image, persona, etc., deserves to be protected, not only for Plaintiff's own sake but also for the sake of his family and friends who would not like to see his image, name and other elements being misused, especially for such tarnishing and negative use.

46. The present case shows how elements of intellectual property that protect the attributes of an individual, in fact have other dimensions including rights protected by the Constitution of India.

(emphasis is mine)

17. In view of the aforesaid, prima facie, I am of the view that the

Plaintiff's personality traits and/or parts thereof, including the

Plaintiff's name, voice, photograph / caricature, image, likeness,

persona, and other attributes of his personality are protectable

elements of the Plaintiff's personality rights and right to

publicity.

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18. It is a settled proposition of law that in an action for protecting

personality rights and right to publicity, establishing the

celebrity status of the plaintiff is only the primary ingredient.

Additionally, it must be established that the plaintiff is

identifiable from the defendant's unauthorized use and that such

use by the defendant is for commercial gain. In the present Suit,

prima facie, the record shows that in the course of their

impugned activities Defendant Nos. 1 to 9, 11 to 25, 37 and 38

are unauthorizedly using the Plaintiff's personality traits such as

name, image, likeness, etc. and that the Plaintiff can be

specifically identified during such use. It also appears that such

illegal exploitation of the Plaintiff's personality rights and right

to publicity by the Defendant Nos. 1 to 9, 11 to 25, 37 and 38 is

for commercial and personal gain. Pertinently, all this is being

done by these Defendants without any permission or

authorization of the Plaintiff. Making AI tools available that

enable the conversion of any voice into that of a celebrity

without his/her permission constitutes a violation of the

celebrity's personality rights. Such tools facilitate unauthorized

appropriation and manipulation of a celebrity's voice, which is a

key component of their personal identity and public persona.

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This form of technological exploitation not only infringes upon

the individual's right to control and protect their own likeness

and voice but also undermines their ability to prevent

commercial and deceptive uses of their identity.

19. What shocks the conscience of this Court is the manner in which

celebrities, particularly performers such as the present Plaintiff

are vulnerable to being targeted by unauthorized generative AI

content such as that of some of the Defendants herein. These

Defendants are attracting visitors / drawing traffic to their

websites and/or AI platforms by capitalizing on the Plaintiff's

popularity and reputation, thereby subjecting the Plaintiff

personality rights to potential abuse. These Defendants are

emboldening internet users to create counterfeit sound

recordings and videos that misuse the Plaintiff's character and

identity. In my view, creation of new audio or video content /

songs / videos in the Plaintiff's AI name / voice, photograph,

image, likeness and persona without his consent and

commercially using the same could potentially jeopardize the

Plaintiff's career / livelihood. Additionally, allowing the

Defendants to continue using the Plaintiff's name, voice, likeness

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etc. in the form of an AI content, without consent of the Plaintiff,

not only risks severe economic harm to the Plaintiff's life/career,

but also leaves room for opportunities for misutilization of such

tools by unscrupulous individuals for nefarious purposes.

20. Further, there cannot be any doubt that the advertisement,

promotion and sale of merchandise such as posters, caricatures,

portraits, t-shirts / clothing, framed photographs, guitar tabs,

face-masks, etc. bearing / exploiting the Plaintiff's personality

traits as done by the Defendant Nos. 11 to 23, without any

permission from the Plaintiff, is in violation of the Plaintiff's

personality rights and right of publicity. Moreover, in the present

case, the Plaintiff has specifically pleaded that he has made a

conscious personal choice to refrain from any kind of brand

endorsement or gross commercialization of his personality traits

for the past several years.

21. In the context of freedom and speech and expression, I agree

with the submission of Mr. Kamod that even though such

freedom allows for critique and commentary, it does not grant

the license to exploit a celebrity's persona for commercial gain.

In these circumstances, this Court is inclined to protect the

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Plaintiff against any wrongful exploitation of his personality

rights and right to publicity.

22. In view of the aforesaid and considering the averments made

paragraphs 42 to 45 and 53 of the Plaint, I am of the prima facie

view that the Plaintiff has made out a strong case for the grant

of ad-interim injunction, which may also operate as a dynamic

injunction. Mr. Kamod's reliance on the judgment of this Court

in Applause Entertainment Private Limited v. Meta Platforms Inc.

and others (supra) is apposite. The balance of convenience is in

favour of the Plaintiff and against the Defendant. Unless the

reliefs as prayed for are granted, the Plaintiff will suffer

irreparable injury which cannot be compensated in terms of

money.

23. Mr. Kamod submits that at this ex-parte stage, the Plaintiff is

only pressing for reliefs in terms of prayer clause (a), (d), (e),

(f) and (g) of the captioned Interim Application and that the

Plaintiff will press for further ad-interim reliefs in respect of the

remaining prayer clauses at a later stage, after giving notice to

the Defendants.

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24. According to me, in view of what is stated hereinabove and in

paragraph 60 of the Plaint, giving notice to the Defendants

would defeat the purpose of the Plaintiff's present application.

In these circumstances, there shall be an ex-parte ad-interim

order in terms of prayer clauses (a), (d), (e), (f) and (g) of the

captioned Interim Application, except the portion in red brackets

and modifications / clarifications hereinbelow. The extracted

prayer clauses are as under:

"(a) that pending the hearing and final disposal of the suit, the Defendant Nos. 1 to 25, 37 and 38, by themselves, their partners, proprietors, directors, owners, developers, servants, subordinates, representatives, employees, suppliers, affiliates, agents, stockists, distributors, dealers, subsidiaries, franchisees, licensees, assigns, predecessors and / or all persons / entity claiming through them be restrained by a temporary order of injunction from violating the Personality Rights and / or Publicity Rights of the Plaintiff by utilizing and/or in any manner, directly or indirectly, using or exploiting or misappropriating the Plaintiff's Personality Rights and / or Publicity Rights by the use of his (i) name "Arijit Singh", (ii) voice / vocal style and technique / vocal arrangements and interpretations, (iii) mannerism / manner of singing, (iv) photograph, image or its likeness, (v) signature, persona, and / or any other attributes of his personality in any form, 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 but not limited to through the use of any technology including but not limited to (i) unauthorized use of any of the

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Plaintiff's personality traits in any form or media, including online platforms, publications, advertisements, promotional materials, merchandise, domain names, or any other commercial endeavor, (ii) creating or using artificial intelligence voice models, or voice conversion tool, synthesized voices or digital avatars, caricatures, that imitate or mimic or represent the Plaintiff or Plaintiff's personality traits, and (iii) artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, deepfakes, face morphing and / or GIFs, or any of them, on any medium or formats including but not limited to the physical medium, the virtual medium such as websites, Metaverse, social media, etc;

(d) that pending the hearing and final disposal of the suit, Defendant Nos. 26, 27 and 30 be ordered and directed to remove or cancel or suspend the impugned domain names arijitsingh.com and arijitsingh.in, or in the alternative transfer the impugned domain names arijitsingh.com and arijitsingh.in to the name of the Plaintiff;

(e) that pending the hearing and final disposal of the suit, the Defendant Nos. 1 to 37 be ordered and directed to take down / remove / delete / block access to / suspend all [infringing content that has been uploaded by the Defendants herein as well as] the infringing URLs identified by the Plaintiff in Exhibit X to the plaint;

(f) that pending the hearing and final disposal of the suit, the Defendant Nos. 33 to 36 be ordered and directed to disclose all particulars of the Defendant Nos. 11 to 23;

(g) that pending the hearing and final disposal of the suit, the Defendant Nos. 26 to 31 be ordered and directed to disclose all particulars of the Registrant(s) of the impugned domain names www.100xengineers.com, www.jammable.com,

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www.topmediai.com, www.filme.imyfone.com, and www.huggingface.co, "arijitsingh.com", "arijitsingh.in"

and "www.audimee.com" to the Plaintiff;"

25. The aforesaid order / directions shall not operate against the

Defendant No. 10 at this stage.

26. In so far as aforesaid prayer clause (d) is concerned, it is

clarified that at this stage, the Defendant Nos. 26, 27 and 30

shall only lock / suspend the domain names arijitsingh.com and

arijitsingh.in and they shall not permit any transfer thereof to

third parties until the next date of hearing. On the next date,

after giving notice to these Defendants, this Court shall consider

the Plaintiff's application to take over these domain names

subject to payment of requisite charges.

27. While there cannot possible be any reasonable justification for

the blatant violation of the Plaintiff's personality rights and right

to publicity as aforesaid, I do not think that taking down the

entire videos of the Defendant Nos. 1, 2 and 7 on the following

links is appropriate. A direction to these Defendants to simply

remove or delete all the references to the Plaintiff's name,

image, voice, personality traits etc. in the said videos should

suffice. Accordingly, in so far as the videos on the following links

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(also reproduced in Exhibit "X" to the Plaint) are concerned, the

Defendant Nos.1, 2 and 7 are directed to edit/delete/remove all

references to the Plaintiff's personality traits, including his

name, voice, image, likeness, etc. from the said videos:

a. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ0fgV-kXwI

b. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GmiiekhOak

c. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lhof7oKeU4

d. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kni5mn9TFgU

e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iGSNeU-tDY

28. The Defendant Nos. 26 to 36 are directed to comply with the

directions passed in terms of prayer clauses (f) and (g) of the

Interim Application reproduced above, within two weeks from

the date of service of this order. The Defendant Nos. 26 to 36 are

directed to co-operate with the Plaintiff, its representatives and

Advocates to provide the necessary details for the effective

implementation of this order.

29. Compliance of Order XXXIX Rule 3 CPC is also permitted by

email considering the large number of Defendants, and the fact

that most of the contact details may not be available. In so far as

those Defendants for whom postal addresses are available, the

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Plaintiff shall also in addition do compliance by speed post

service. The said compliance shall be done within two days of

this order being made available.

30. Liberty to the Defendants to apply for a variation or

modification of this order after at least 7 clear working days'

notice to the Advocates of the Plaintiff.

31. List the above Interim Application on 2nd September, 2024 for

further ad-interim reliefs.

32. This order will continue till 3rd September, 2024.

33. This order will be digitally signed by the Private Secretary /

Personal Assistant of this Court. All concerned will act on

production of a digitally signed copy of this order.

[ R.I. CHAGLA J. ]

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