In a big relief, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday protected the personality rights of Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan. As reported by Live Law, the court directed the removal of certain links and listings
on various internet and e-commerce websites, which allegedly infringed the personality rights of the War 2 actor.
The court also declined to grant ex-parte relief against Instagram pages and fan clubs of the Bollywood actor, who had approached the court seeking protection of his personality rights against unauthorised use of his images/voice for alleged commercial purposes.
Hrithik, via his lawyer, told the court that his name and images were being used to sell products. He also claimed that his videos are being widely circulated for dance tutorials.
However, the court noted, “It’s a song which is of Hritik Roshan which they will be using for dance tutorial. They are using that performance to teach people. It is not commercial merchandise. At this stage, I am not persuaded by this…This is available in public domain. Anybody can use this.”
In recent times, several celebrities, including Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan, Karan Johar, Rishab Shetty and Akkineni Nagarjuna, also moved court to seek protection of their personality rights.
Recently, the Bombay High Court issued an order protecting the unauthorised use of veteran playback singer Asha Bhosle’s personality rights. The court restrained various entities from misusing the personal attributes of the singer, like her name and images – even with the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It also stated that making AI tools available to replicate a celebrity’s voice without consent is a violation of their identity rights.
“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 Delhi High Court said while protecting Aishwarya’s rights.
What Are Personality Rights?
Personality rights refer to an individual’s legal entitlement to control the commercial and public use of their identity. They safeguard attributes that are uniquely linked to a person, such as their name, image, likeness, voice, signature, or even trademark catchphrases, from being exploited without consent.
These rights are often broken into two branches – the Right of publicity and the Right to privacy. The former protects against unauthorised commercial exploitation, such as using a celebrity’s face in advertisements. On the other hand, the right to privacy guards against intrusion into personal dignity, covering misuse through deepfakes, morphed images, fabricated endorsements, or intimate doctored content.
