Delhi High Court Protects Personality Rights Of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Says Unauthorised Exploitation Violates Right To Privacy

The Delhi High Court has protected the personality rights of bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, observing that unauthorized exploitation of personal attributes of an individual violates right to privacy and undermines the right to live with dignity.

Justice Tejas Karia restrained various entities from misusing the personal attributes of the actress like her name and images by employing technological tools, including Artificial Intelligence.

The Court said that the misuse is not only causing financial detriment to Bachchan, but also leads to harming her dignity, reputation and goodwill.

It added that the misuse of the her name, image, likeness and other elements of her persona clearly constitutes infringement as the adoption of the same without her authorization will inevitably cause confusion and create a perception of endorsement by her.

“Personality Rights of individuals, simply put, entail the right to control and protect the exploitation of one's image, name, likeness or other attributes of the individuals' personality, in addition to the commercial gains that can be derived from the same. Personality Rights can be located in the individuals' autonomy to permit or deny the exploitation of the likeness of other attributes of their personality,” the Court said.

It added that when the identity of a famous personality is used without their consent or authorization, it may not only lead to commercial detriment to the concerned individual but also impact their right to live with dignity.

“In other words, 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,” it said.

Justice Karia added that Courts in such cases of unauthorized exploitation of one's Personality Rights, cannot turn a blind-eye and shall protect the aggrieved parties so as to avert any harm to them resulting from the said unauthorized exploitation.

The Court passed ex parte ad interim injunction in favour of the actress in her suit filed against various defendant entities misusing her personality traits without her consent.

The Court restrained the defendants, including unknown entities (john doe) from exploiting or misappropriating the actress' name “Aishwarya Rai Bachchan” and acronym “ARB”, her image and likeness and any other attributes of her persona for any commercial or personal gain without her consent, through the use of any technology including but not limited to Artificial Intelligence, Generative Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deepfakes, Face Morphing, on any medium and format.

The Court further directed Google LLC to take down the URLs as identified in the suit within 72 hours and to also file in a sealed cover or password protected document all the Basic Subscriber Information of the owners or operators and sellers of goods.

It also directed the MeiTY to issue necessary directions to block and disable all the URLs within 7 days. 

Concluding, Justice Karia observed that since Rai is one of the most celebrated personalities in the Indian entertainment industry, who has served various brands as their ambassador, she has garnered significant goodwill and reputation such that the members of the public repose their trust in the brands endorsed by her.

“Any infringement of the Plaintiff's Personality Rights, while causing confusion amongst the members of the public regarding endorsement or sponsorship of a product or service by the Plaintiff, will also lead to dilution of the Plaintiff's reputation and goodwill,” it said.

Case title: AISHWARYA RAI BACHCHAN v/s AISHWARYAWORLD.COM & ORS.

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