Delhi High Court grants relief to Aishwarya Rai, says breach of personality rights undermines celebrity's dignity

The Delhi High Court on September 9 granted interim injunction to Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, protecting her publicity and personality rights [Aishwarya Rai Bachchan v Aishwaryaworld.com & Ors].

The Court said that when the identity of a famous personality is used without their consent or authorization, it may not only cause commercial detriment to them but also impact their right to live with dignity

Justice Tejas Karia explained that personality rights of individuals - the right to control and protect the exploitation of one’s image, name, likeness or other attributes of the individuals’ personality - can be located in the individuals’ autonomy to permit or deny the exploitation of the likeness of other attributes of their personality.

"The unauthorized 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," the Court said.

It thus stressed that the Courts in such cases of unauthorized exploitation of one’s personality rights, cannot turn a blind-eye to the same and must protect the aggrieved parties to avert any harm to them resulting from unauthorized exploitation.

Bachchan moved the Court to prevent the infringement her copyright, performer’s rights, misappropriation of personality, publicity rights, passing off against certain websites, company and unknown persons.

Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi appeared for the actor and argued that her image, likeness and personality are being used by unauthorised people not only to sell merchandise but also for pornographic purposes.

"It is shocking. Her morphed pictures are being used. It is all AI generated. There are intimate photographs, completely unreal... Her image, her persona, her likeness is being used to satisfy someone’s sexual desire. He [defendant] is collecting money by putting my face and name," Sethi stated.

He pointed to a firm named Aishwarya Nation Wealth which used Bachchan's picture on its letterhead and named her its chairperson.

"My client has no prior knowledge or entered into any conversation with them. There is fraudulent intent," he said.

The Court said that Bachchan's personality rights are being misused and allowing it would not only cause confusion in public by creating perception of endorsement by her, but also lead to dilution of her reputation and goodwill.

"It is clear that the attributes of the Plaintiff’s persona, including her name and images, are being misused by Defendant Nos. 1 to 9 and 13, without any authorization from the Plaintiff, by employing technological tools, including Artificial Intelligence. The said misuse is not only causing financial detriment to the Plaintiff, but also leads to harming her dignity, reputation and goodwill," the Court said in the order.

The Court thus restrained various defendants from violating her personality/publicity rights, moral rights and passing off their goods and services as if it is endorsed by her.

Further, the Court restrained the defendants from creating, sharing, or disseminating any product using artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, deepfakes, face morphing on any medium and format that results in dilution of Bachchan's public persona.

In this regard, the Court directed an e-commerce platform and Google to take down, remove, disable and block the URLs identified in the petition within 72 hours of receiving notice of this order. They were also asked to produce basic subscriber information to identify the defendants.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology and the Department of Technology shall also issue necessary directions to block and disable all the URLs, the Court directed.

Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi with advocates Pravin Anand, Ameet naik, Madhu Gadodia, Dhruv Anand, Udita Patro, Nimrat Singh, Deevesha Tudekar, Dhananjay Khanna, Aayushi Udani and Riya Kumar from Anand and Naik appeared for Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

Advocates Mamta Rani Jha, Rohan Ahuja, Shruttima Ehersa, Devangini Rai, Aiswarya Debadarsini, Diya and Jahanvi appeared for Google.

Bachchan's husband Abhishek Bachchan has also moved the High Court alleging violation of personality rights. The Court is yet to pass order on that plea.

[Read Order]