Earlier, Delhi High Court rulings protected actors Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, and Jackie Shroff in similar cases.
The Delhi High Court has 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 unauthorized 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 actor'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," said the court, which fixed January 15 as the next date of hearing.
The defendants named in the suit include websites like aishwaryaworld.com, apkpure.com, bollywoodteeshop.com, kashcollectiveco.com, e-commerce platform Etsy, chatbot site jainatorai.com, YouTube channels, Google LLC, the IT Ministry and the Department of Telecommunications.
