The Delhi high court on Thursday safeguarded Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s personality and publicity rights by restraining entities from commercially exploiting her name, image, and voice without consent, concluding that unauthorised use of a celebrity’s identity not only causes commercial harm but also infringes upon their right to live with dignity.
A bench of Justice Tejas Karia delivered the order on the Bachchan’s petition seeking protection of her name, image, voice, and other distinctive personality attributes. In her suit, Bachchan said that various people were infringing her publicity and personality rights by using her name, voice, and video for illegal commercial purposes, morphing her image using artificial intelligence and other technology on videos and pornographic content.
In his 16-page order, the judge directed entities to remove within 72 hours the URLs infringing on the actor’s personality rights, noting that unauthorised use of her persona could mislead the public and create a false impression of her endorsement.
“When the identity of a famous personality is used without their consent or authorisation, it may not only lead to commercial detriment to the concerned individual but also impact their right to live with dignity. In other words, the unauthorised exploitation of the attributes of an individual’s personality may have two facets – first, violation of their right to protect their personality attributes from being commercially exploited; and second, violation of their right to privacy, which in turn leads to undermining their right to live with dignity,” said the court, which fixed January 15 as the next date of hearing.
The judge said the courts in such cases of unauthorised exploitation of one’s personality rights cannot turn a blind eye to the same and shall protect the aggrieved parties to avert any harm to them resulting from the unauthorised exploitation.
{{/usCountry}}The judge said the courts in such cases of unauthorised exploitation of one’s personality rights cannot turn a blind eye to the same and shall protect the aggrieved parties to avert any harm to them resulting from the unauthorised exploitation.
{{/usCountry}}The verdict came a day after the same bench said that it would also issue an order safeguarding Bollywood actor Abhishekh Bachchan’s personality and publicity rights.
In May 2024, the court safeguarded 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 restrained the 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.