4 months ago
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Actor Kamal Haasan has filed a John Doe suit (a lawsuit filed against chartless individuals / entities) earlier the Madras High Court to support his property rights and forestall commercialized exploitation of his name, initials, portraits, images oregon immoderate different attributes related to his persona without his explicit consent.
Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy is expected to perceive the actor’s suit arsenic good arsenic his plea for interim injunctions connected Monday (January 12, 2026). In his plaint, the 71-year-old histrion told the tribunal that helium has been successful the movie manufacture since puerility and created a niche for himself done his expertise successful assorted creation forms.
Referring to a circumstantial lawsuit of a Chennai-based steadfast named ‘Neeye Vidai’ selling T-shirts and shirts printed with his portraits, name, initials, his rubric ‘Ulaganayagan’ and celebrated dialogues from his movies without his consent, the histrion sought an injunction against the steadfast arsenic good arsenic each different chartless entities who indulge successful specified acts.
In his main suit, the histrion had sought a imperishable injunction against ‘Neeye Vidai’ arsenic good arsenic John Doe (a sanction utilized for the chartless entities) and their associates, agents, servants, affiliates, holding companies, assignees, substitutes, representatives, radical companies, their subscribers, employees and specified different persons.
He wanted the tribunal to restrain them from violating his property rights by straight oregon indirectly utilising, using, exploiting oregon misappropriating his sanction ‘Kamal Haasan’, the abbreviation ‘KH’, his representation oregon its likeness oregon immoderate different attributes which are exclusively identifiable with his persona.
The histrion contended that nary 1 could beryllium allowed to unauthorisedly exploit his persona for commercialized oregon idiosyncratic gains successful immoderate mode whatsoever including the usage of artificial quality (AI), generative AI, instrumentality learning, heavy fakes, look morphing and different caller technologies.
Apart from the main supplication for a imperishable injunction successful his suit, the histrion had besides filed 4 applications seeking interim injunctions of akin nature. He insisted that nary 1 could beryllium permitted to create, stock oregon disseminate products (such arsenic clothes, java mugs and posters) oregon contented (images/videos) violating his property rights.
Stating that the unauthorised usage of his images and names successful those products ends up giving a incorrect content to the radical arsenic if helium had endorsed them, the histrion submitted earlier the tribunal a transcript of the immoderate of the products to beryllium however his property rights had been violated by the Chennai-based firm.
