Bollywood Actor Hrithik Roshan who had moved the Delhi High Court seeking protection of his personality rights was given relief on Wednesday Oct 15 by a bench headed by Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora who heard the matter, according to a report by Live Law. The actor had alleged that his likeness was being used for commercial and monetary purposes and wished to prevent any such further activities. This win is a step in favour of the push back against Generative AI as well.
Several celebrities have already raised their voices against this phenomenon with many filing lawsuits to prevent their likeness being used, and now Hrithik Roshan is the latest to pursue the legal route against AI and protection of personality rights. The actor is following in the steps of celebrities like Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Karan Johar and others who have also filed suits for similar reasons.
The verdict
The High Court bench headed by Justice Arora passed an injunction order, directing towards the removal of links and listings on the internet and various e-commerce websites which allegedly infringed on the actor’s personality rights. The suit had named John Does – unknown individuals – apart from named defendants. Roshan sought protection of his personality or publicity rights, including his name, voice, image, likeness and various other attributes against commercial use or for monetary gain.
Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi represented him and put forward that images of the actor were being used for profit to sell merchandise such as bags, clothing, accessories, etc. The suit requested the removal or take down of fan pages on social media platforms as well and it was also alleged that videos of the actor dancing were being used for tutorials in an “unauthorised manner”.
Justice Arora however noted that, “It’s a song which is of Hrithik 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.”
As for the plea regarding fan pages, the court noted that fan pages could not be taken down as they were using the actor’s image for non-commercial purposes and would not be taken down until the owner of said fan pages was heard. According to ANI, it instead “directed that the Basic Subscriber Information (BSI) of such pages be shared with the actor to help identify potential misuse.”
The court said, “We can’t have fan clubs taken down at ex parte stage. Let this be for a later stage. I am not willing to take down fan pages. We will ask them to provide you BSI details. I understand commercialisation, morphed, obscene, but I don’t understand fan club takedown…Instagram use is not only commercial. People do it for fun and recreation. These pages are not defamatory to you at all.”
However, it granted that all AI generated content of the actor would be taken down according to the Live Law report. Bollywood playback singer Kumar Sanu had also approached the HC for similar reasons and his matter is to be heard today as well.
The dangers of GenAI
The widespread usage of Artificial Intelligence has been on the upswing, especially GenAI. Generative AI or GenAI allows users to generate images, artwork, text, music and a plethora of other things via prompts; with the right prompts users can also generate images of celebrities and other famous figures as seen in the viral Gemini Polaroid trend where fans created images of them hugging their idols. Images generated can be fantastical at best and defamatory at worst. The harm of deepfakes is already well known and can be used to propagate disinformation to disastrous effect.
FM Nirmala Sitharaman also spoke about the dangers of AI at length during the launch for “AI for Viksit Bharat: The Opportunity for Accelerated Economic Growth”, claiming that she had seen several deepfake videos of her circulating online. She had warned that while AI had it’s benefits, it was also being used for deception and fraud. She called for responsible AI regulations so that the technology could be used responsibly and for innovation rather than harm.