Delhi HC upholds Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s personality rights

Justice Tejas Karia issues a landmark ruling protecting Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s personality rights, restraining misuse of her name, image, and AI-generated deepfake content.

In a major win for digital privacy and personality rights, the Delhi High Court has ruled in favour of actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, delivering a strong message against the misuse of celebrity identity in the age of AI. Justice Tejas Karia passed an ex parte ad interim injunction preventing several known and unknown parties from using her name, image, likeness, or attributes such as “Aishwarya Rai Bachchan” and acronym “ARB” for commercial or personal gain.

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The court emphasized that such unauthorized use violates her right to privacy, dignity, and reputation, and misleads the public into believing she endorses certain products or services. The ruling covers all forms of misuse, including AI, deepfakes, face morphing, and machine learning content across any medium.

Google LLC has been directed to remove URLs listed in the suit within 72 hours and provide subscriber details in a sealed cover, while the Ministry of Electronics and IT must block the URLs within seven days.

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The plea pointed out that explicit AI-generated videos and morphed images of the actress were being circulated online, along with unauthorized merchandise like T-shirts and mugs carrying her image. “Her name and likeness is being used to satisfy someone's sexual desires. This is very unfortunate,” senior advocate Sandeep Sethi told the court.

The defendants include websites such as aishwaryaworld.com, apkpure.com, bollywoodteeshop.com, kashcollectiveco.com, e-commerce site Etsy, chatbot site jainatorai.com, YouTube channels, Google LLC, and the Department of Telecommunications.

This landmark ruling underlines the growing need to protect celebrity personality rights in the digital era, especially against the menace of deepfakes that can cause irreparable damage to reputation and mental well-being.

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