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Delhi HC to pass orders protecting actor Vivek Oberoi’s personality rights
Actor and entrepreneur Vivek Oberoi moved the court saying artificial intelligence and deepfake technology were being used to morph and superimpose his face
The Delhi high court on Thursday said that it would pass orders protecting actor and entrepreneur Vivek Oberoi’s personality rights by restraining entities from using his name, image, and identity without his consent.
“Yes, we’ll pass orders,” a bench of justice Tushar Rao Gedela said as it took up Oberoi’s suit for protection of his personality rights. Oberoi accused entities of impersonating him on social media by creating fake accounts using his name and image, selling unauthorised merchandise, and producing and circulating AI-generated content.
Oberoi’s suit said AI and deepfake technology were being used to morph and superimpose his face to create objectionable imagery. It added that some of the impugned content is offensive, inappropriate, and defamatory, and has the potential to exploit his identity commercially and undermine his market value.
“As only the Plaintiff [Oberoi] has control over the commercial utilization of his personality, name, image, likeness and other characteristics that are uniquely identifiable and associated with the Plaintiff, no one can utilize and/or misappropriate and/or imitate any facet of the Plaintiff’s personality and/or exploit the same commercially in any manner whatsoever without the consent and/or express authorization of the Plaintiff.”
This year, the court protected the personality rights of senior advocate Vikas Pahwa. Last year, it protected the personality and publicity rights of filmmaker Karan Johar and actors Akkineni Nagarjuna, Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan, Hrithik Roshan, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
