Delhi HC passes order protecting Sadhguru's personality rights

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has passed an order protecting the personality and publicity rights of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, founder of Isha Foundation, and restrained various rogue websites and unknown entities from misusing his personality traits through the use of Artificial Intelligence in any medium or platform.

Justice Saurabh Banerjee passed an ex-parte interim order, saying the balance of convenience is tilting towards the grant of relief in favour of the plaintiff -- Sadhguru.

The court passed a 'dynamic+' injunction in favour of Sadhguru, a form of injunctive relief which is being granted by courts in similar matters in recent years, primarily to protect parties like the plaintiffs herein against rapidly developing online infringement platforms.

"Therefore, the position of law apparent therefrom, which has since developed with the passage of time, clearly reflects that the rights of a plaintiff, cannot be rendered otiose in this world of rapidly developing technology and for that, enforcement of intellectual property rights on any social platform, including but not limited to, the internet as well alongwith the real world, ought to be visible and effective," the court said.

The court passed the ad interim injunction order in favour of Sadhguru in his suit seeking protection of his personality rights being infringed by various rogue websites and unknown entities.

It said Sadhguru has acquired uniqueness pertaining to his personality qua his voice, name, signature, image, likeness, vocal, articulation style and his unique attire, looks or appearance.

Justice Banerjee said Sadhguru's personality rights are quite unique, and the impugned contents were not only utilising his personality rights but 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 (wrong) message will spread like wild fire with hardly any water left to douse it," the court added.

The court ordered the suspension of accounts and the takedown of YouTube channels that exclusively pertain to content infringing upon Sadhguru'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 of infringing Sadhguru's exclusive rights.

It said with the immense degree of freedom enjoyed by developers and innovators globally today, especially those intellectual property right holders like Sadhguru, are prone to or may be exposed or vulnerable to the actions of the 'rogue websites', more so, if such right holders are 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.

"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.

The court issued notice in Sadhguru's suit and listed the matter for further hearing on October 14.