Amid deepfake surge, Bollywood stars fight for personality rights

Could an AI-generated selfie with a Bollywood star get you into trouble? It might!

- BY S VENKAT NARAYAN

In the past couple of weeks, some of Bollywood's biggest celebrities have sought to legally protect their "personality rights." The list includes director Karan Johar, actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and her husband and actor Abhishek Bachchan.

Personality rights, also called publicity rights, refer to a person's right to benefit, commercially or otherwise, from their identity or persona. This includes the person's name, image, voice, mannerisms or even a catchphrase or gesture that's unique to them.

These rights also protect a person's identity from being misused or commercially exploited, and do not extend beyond the individual.

So, a celebrity can profit from their fame by endorsing a product for a fee, but their image cannot be used by another person to promote a product without consent.

India does not have a dedicated law protecting personality rights, so judges defer to common law which are laws developed by judges by applying legal principles to decide on cases. This is different from some states in the US, like California - home to Hollywood where publicity rights are protected under statutory law.

These rights are routinely violated in India, where it is common for small businesses and shops to use images of Bollywood celebrities for promotional purposes.

In their pleas to the Delhi High Court, Bollywood celebrities have raised concerns about their identities being misused for unauthorised merchandising, creation of fake profiles and websites, and for making obscene AI-generated content among other things.

The courts have upheld their personality rights and directed the defendants and related platforms to remove the unlawful content.

This isn't the first time that celebrities have gone to court over the issue.