Bombay high court
MUMBAI: Observing that consent is at the heart of the matter, the Bombay high court has directed streaming platform Amazon Prime to immediately take down the Telugu film ‘V’ until the producers delete the scene in which model-actress Sakshi Malik’s photograph had been used without her prior permission.
“Simply using another’s image, and most especially a private image, without consent is prima facie impermissible, unlawful and entirely illegal. In a given case, it may also be defamatory, depending on the type of use,” said Justice Gautam Patel on Tuesday. The order came on a defamation suit filed by Malik against the “utterly illicit use” of her photograph by Venkateshwara Creations Pvt Ltd and V Venkata Ramana Reddy aka Dil Raju in the film ‘V’ that was released on September 4, 2020, and since then was available on Amazon Prime. In August 2017, Malik had uploaded photos on her Instagram account and one of these pictures was used in the film in a reference to a “female escort or a commercial sex worker” and it was defamatory, argued her advocate Alankar Kirpekar.