Recalibrating the expanding scope of personality rights in India: The surge and the concerns

Personality rights have emerged as one of the most debated topics in Indian legal circles over the past year, alongside artificial intelligence. What began as judicial efforts to protect celebrities from AI-generated deepfakes and fraudulent endorsements has evolved into broader protections that raise important questions about balancing celebrity rights with free expression, creativity, and commerce.

At their core, personality rights serve the purpose of preserving dignity and preventing exploitation in the digital age. They protect well-known individuals from unauthorized commercial misappropriation and fraudulent exploitation of their persona. This straightforward understanding forms the foundation of the doctrine. However, recent judicial developments suggest the scope may be expanding beyond these traditional boundaries, raising the need for recalibration.

The concern driving recent personality rights litigation is both real and serious. The proliferation of AI technologies has enabled the creation of highly realistic deepfakes, falsely suggesting celebrity endorsements of fraudulent investment schemes, dubious products, and deceptive services. Morphed images and cloned voices can damage reputations built over decades and mislead the public into financial harm.

Courts have rightly recognized the need to protect individuals from such commercial misappropriation and fraudulent exploitation. The ability to control one's persona and prevent deceptive uses serves not only the celebrity's economic interests but also protects consumers from fraud. In this context, judicial intervention is both necessary and legitimate.

Over the past two years, Indian courts, particularly the Delhi High Court, have seen over 20 personality rights cases filed by prominent celebrities including Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Karan Johar, Kumar Sanu, Akshay Kumar, Akkineni Nagarjuna, Mohan Babu, Vishnu Manchu, and Ankur Warikoo.

While many cases address the legitimate concerns outlined above, the reliefs sought sometimes extend to activities that may warrant closer scrutiny, such as fan pages, transformative merchandise, satirical content, and creative works referencing celebrity personas. These cases provide an occasion to reflect on the evolving contours of personality rights and where appropriate boundaries lie.

Recent cases reveal requests for protection that go beyond traditional personality rights and raise questions about proportionality:

1. Protection of catchphrases and mannerisms: Courts have protected speech patterns, dialogue delivery styles, gestures, and catchphrases like “Jhakaas” and “Bhidu” as proprietary elements. While protecting distinctive celebrity attributes is understandable, extending protection to common cultural expressions that are part of everyday parlance raises concerns about monopolizing language itself.

2. Restraints on subscribers: The Mohan Babu case included relief restraining “subscribers” of social media channels, raising practical questions about enforceability against anonymous, passive viewers who don’t create content. How can millions of subscribers, many operating under pseudonyms, be held accountable for viewing content they did not create? What exactly are they restrained from doing, viewing, sharing, or commenting?

3. Broad merchandise prohibitions: T-shirts featuring celebrity caricatures or quotes have been restrained, sometimes without detailed analysis of whether they even create any actual consumer confusion about endorsement. The Anil Kapoor case, for instance, restrained merchandise featuring the actor’s caricature and catchphrase “Jhakaas”, both of which are elements that most consumers would understand as fan culture or satire rather than official endorsements.

4. Fan pages and fan art: Some cases have sought takedowns of tribute or fan pages created by enthusiasts expressing admiration. These fan communities often drive much of the celebrity’s popularity and cultural relevance, yet they now face potential legal action for their expressions of appreciation.

Every legal right, whether property, intellectual property, or personality right, operates within limits. None are absolute. The principle of proportionality must therefore guide the design of relief in personality rights cases.

Courts should tailor remedies to the nature and gravity of the injury proved. Injunctions should be focused on preventing unauthorized monetization or deceptive misuse, rather than silencing legitimate actions. Personality rights should not shield personalities from criticism, parody, satire, or unflattering commentary that form essential elements of free expression in a democracy.

When protection morphs into overbroad restraint on lawful expression, it can chill speech, journalism, and artistic expression. The challenge for courts is distinguishing between genuine commercial misappropriation that warrants intervention and transformative or expressive uses that merit protection under principles of free speech.

The vitality of personality rights as a doctrine depends on this equilibrium. Their strength lies in moderation and precision, in protecting what genuinely requires protection while preserving the openness of discourse that sustains both art and democracy.

The Anil Kapoor case illustrates the complexities courts must navigate. While protecting the actor’s name, likeness, voice, and even catchphrases, one disputed item (a t-shirt with Anil Kapoor's caricature and “Jhakaas”) raises questions about transformative use.

Such merchandise, arguably fan culture, commentary, or satire rather than false endorsement, might merit protection under principles of free expression. Most consumers understand unofficial merchandise as tribute or critique, not authorized endorsement. A fan wearing a t-shirt with “Jhakaas” and a caricature knows it’s not an official product (especially when there is anyway no such authorised products by the celebrity in the market). They’re celebrating a cultural icon, not being deceived about commercial affiliation.

The challenge is distinguishing between uses creating actual consumer confusion about commercial affiliation and transformative works that comment on, celebrate, or critique cultural icons. Transformative use occurs when someone takes an existing work or persona and adds new meaning, message, or expression to it. A caricature with a catchphrase adds commentary.

In our view, Indian law would benefit from explicit recognition of transformative use principles, ensuring that creative engagement with public figures is not conflated with commercial misappropriation. Without such recognition, courts risk extending personality rights so broadly that they stifle the very creative culture that makes celebrities culturally significant and valuable.

Celebrity suits often name dozens of defendants engaged in vastly different activities, ranging from creating fraudulent deepfakes to making fan compilation videos or selling tribute merchandise. These deserve separate evaluation under different standards.

A deepfake falsely suggesting endorsement of a financial scam differs fundamentally from fan art, satirical commentary, or transformative merchandise. The former involves actual fraud and consumer deception, and the latter involves creative expression and cultural engagement. Courts must resist the temptation to issue blanket relief that treats all these uses identically.

The Jackie Shroff case demonstrated the court’s appropriate understanding of this nuance, restraining some defendants while merely issuing notice to a YouTuber creating interview compilations, and thereby implicitly recognizing potential transformative use. This differentiated approach should become standard practice rather than the exception. Each defendant’s activity should be evaluated on its own merits, with remedies tailored to the specific harm caused.

Blanket John Doe orders, while administratively convenient, risk sweeping too broadly and capturing legitimate activities alongside genuinely harmful ones. Courts should resist the convenience of one-size-fits-all relief in favour of nuanced analysis that respects the diverse nature of uses involved.

The surge in personality rights litigation over the past two years reflects genuine concerns about AI-enabled fraud and exploitation. Courts have rightly intervened to protect celebrities and consumers from deceptive practices. However, the relief sought, and sometimes granted, extends beyond these core concerns into areas that implicate free speech, creativity, and cultural engagement.

The principle of proportionality must guide this evolving doctrine to ascertain whether there even is any actual consumer confusion or deception or public harm taking place by the form of usage in question. Similarly, the principle of transformative use must be extended (and, as a principle of common law, not limited to copyright cases alone) where required. And different types of activities should be analysed separately, with relief calibrated to specific harms rather than applied through prophylactic blanket orders.

In Part II, we will examine the constitutional dimensions of this debate, the role of the Trademark Registry in enabling overreach, and the case for comprehensive legislative reform that can provide clarity and balance for all stakeholders.

About the authors: Surabhi Pande and Devvrat Joshi are Associate Partners at Saikrishna & Associates.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s). The opinions presented do not necessarily reflect the views of Bar & Bench.

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