Celebrity Endorsements – The Interplay between Intellectual Property Law and The Consumer Protection Act, 2019

Abstract

The ambit of Copyright law has expanded over time, leading to development of newer concepts such as, ‘Personality Rights’. These rights are vested in individuals who have acquired an ‘identifiable persona’ in the eyes of the public. There are two important facets to personality rights- Right to Publicity &Right to Privacy. When such identifiable identities use their acquired celebrity status to promote goods and services of a company to attract more consumers, it can be understood as ‘Celebrity Endorsements’. This is the most common source of marketing used by major companies to increase sales and garner goodwill and reputation. However, this source of communicating necessary information to the public becomes dangerous when celebrities promote false or misleading advertisements. To counter such issues, the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 introduced provisions tohold celebrities endorsing such products or services to be liable for injury suffered by consumers. The Law mandates that in order to ensure that such misleading advertisements aren’t promoted, the celebrities must conduct ‘due diligence’ of the products before endorsing them. However, the question remains that to what extent can celebrities, who are not directly involved in production or manufacturing, be held liable for exploiting their personality rights? This paper aims at addressing the newly created legal interlink between personality rights via celebrity endorsements and protection of consumer interests.