HC rules in the favour of Janhvi, orders removal of obscene content from 5000 pages

The Delhi High Court intervened to shield Janhvi Kapoor from obscene and pornographic online content, while defining boundaries for personality rights protection. Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani heard Kapoor's plea on Tuesday and issued an interim order directing the removal of certain online material. Kapoor sued over more than 5,000 webpages and social media posts, alleging that AI-generated pornographic content, impersonation accounts, fake booking agencies, and chatbots were commercially exploiting her name, image, and personality attributes without her consent.

The court asked Kapoor's lawyers to narrow down the material that clearly falls under unlawful content, directing them to submit a tabulated list of ex facie pornographic, obscene, prurient, and lascivious material that appears to be monetizing Kapoor's personality rights. The court was more receptive to Kapoor's request for action against specific unlawful content, warning against using personality rights to restrict legitimate expression and potentially creating a worse situation for free speech.

The court also rejected Kapoor's request for a dynamic injunction that could lead to the continuous removal of content online, questioning how such an order could be applied to the ever-changing digital landscape. Another issue raised during the hearing was the relationship between copyright and personality rights, with the court questioning whether selling a copyrighted work featuring a celebrity automatically amounts to monetizing their identity.