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Aishwarya moves HC over misuse of name, image
Delhi High Court to protect Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s personality rights, restraining unauthorized use of her name and image for commercial gain.
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday indicated it would issue an order safeguarding Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s personality and publicity rights, restraining entities from commercially exploiting her name, image and voice without consent.
In her petition, Bachchan said that various people were using artificial intelligence and other technology to morph her face on videos and superimpose her face on the bodies of other people for creating false and misleading images along with other celebrities.
Justice Tejas Karia said the court would also direct the takedown of URLs infringing upon the actor’s personality rights. “We’ll pass an order against each of the defendants (to take down the URLs), because prayers are broad. But we will grant injunctions separately,” Justice Karia observed.
The court was hearing a suit filed by Bachchan through advocates Pravin Anand and Dhruv Anand, seeking protection of her name, image, voice and other distinctive personality attributes.
According to the suit, various entities have been infringing her publicity and personality rights by using her name, voice and video for illegal commercial purposes. Her image has also been morphed in pornographic content.
“Her name and image are being used to satisfy someone’s sexual desires,” senior advocate Sandeep Sethi, representing the actor, submitted before the court.
This marks another instance of Bollywood personalities approaching the high court for protection of personality rights. In May 2024, the court safeguarded veteran actor Jackie Shroff’s personality and publicity rights, observing that unauthorised merchandise sales and distorted videos appeared to generate commercial gain through “unauthorised exploitation.”
The court had similarly restrained misuse of actor Anil Kapoor’s name, image, voice and signature “jhakaas” catchphrase in 2023. In November 2022, the high court protected veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan’s personality and publicity rights from infringement.
Google’s lawyer, Mamta Rani asserted that the court needed to highlight specific URLs for take down.
