Madras high court grants protection to Kamal Haasan’s personality rights
The Madras High Court on Monday protected the personality rights of actor and Rajya Sabha MP Kamal Haasan and prohibited any illegal use of his “image, likeness and name for commercial purposes,” while making it clear that permissible creative expression such as “satire and caricature” was not being restrained.
Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy passed the interim ‘John Doe’ order after hearing submissions from Hassan’s counsel, senior advocate Satish Parasaran, on the unauthorised merchandising and circulation of morphed images and videos using the actor’s likeness.
“Senior counsel (for Hassan) invited my attention to several photographs of morphed images..Submits that these images are causing incalculable damage to his reputation and image as celebrity Counsel also refers to the use of plaintiff’s image, name and the like on merchandise without the plaintiff’s consent or endorsement. Upon examining the above, a strong prima facie case is made out,” the High Court said.
“Therefore, the respondents are restrained from creating false images of the plaintiff and depicting the same through any media until the next hearing. Respondents also restrained from selling merchandise bearing the plaintiff’s name or image without consent or endorsement. This order will not however stand in the way of caricature, satire or other forms of permissible creative expression,” the court said.
The high court also directed Hassan to issue a public notice in English and Tamil newspapers to publicise its order since Hassan had impleaded a John Doe, or unknown entities, as respondent parties in the suit.
Hassan’s counsel told the Court that the actor had sought a John Doe order because several unidentified entities were “commercially merchandising” his image without authorisation.