Introduction
Being a public figure/celebrities comes with their own fair share of problems, though invasion of privacy tops the check list. The act of misappropriation of personality and publicity rights that comes with technological advancements has emerged as a broad and intense issue lately. In order to protect the privacy and personality rights of the celebrities and public figures, the Indian courts have zealously taken active measure to prevent the misappropriation of personality rights1, however the recent case of Arijit Singh v Codible Ventures LLP and Ors.2, is considered to be "First of its Kind" as this is the first time that the Hon'ble Court has addressed the issue of AI voice cloning tools. The Hon'ble High Court of Bombay upholding the personality rights of Arijit Singh, passed an ex-parte ad-interim injunction, which may also operate as a dynamic injunction against several Defendants i.e. AI platforms and other parties to restrain them from using the Plaintiff's (Arijit Singh) name, voice, photographs, images, signature or any other aspect of his personality without his consent.
Brief facts of the Case
In the present case the Plaintiff (Arijit Singh) is a celebrated playback singer and is recognized as a cultural icon globally. Through his extraordinary contributions and accomplishment the Plaintiff has earned a tremendous reputation and widespread goodwill amongst the members of the general public and the Indian music industry. The Plaintiff has not only earned tremendous popularity and fandom from both industry and audiences but has also solidified his standing as a prominent figure in the music industry. The Plaintiff is a well-known singer and also holds right to command and control the use of his personality traits since it forms the part of his exclusive Personality and Publicity rights.
The Plaintiff thus content that misappropriation of any attribute of the Plaintiff's personality traits without his express permission for a commercial purpose is liable to be restrained not only on the basis of the publicity rights namely the exclusive right to commercially exploit one's personality but also on the basis of the tort of dilution, more particularly, tarnishment. It was further stated that any unauthorized distortion, mutilation, or other modification, or dissemination of the Plaintiff's performances / voice or video recordings thereof, causing prejudice/harm to his reputation, would amount to a violation of the Plaintiff's moral rights in his performances under Section 38-B of the Copyright Act, 1957.
The Defendants in the present suit were allegedly engaged in providing means and tools to their customers to unauthorizedly create AI generated voice models of celebrities and popular fictional characters, and were also engaged in exploiting Plaintiff's personality traits namely his name, image, photograph, likeness, voice on various merchandise without consent for commercial gains.
Below is the exhaustive list of infringing Activities committed by the Defendants.
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Sl. No |
Defendant Number |
Infringing Activities |
|---|---|---|
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1. |
Defendant Nos. 1 to 8 |
In order to ride on Plaintiff's goodwill and reputation the Defendants who are AI platforms/owners/founders/managers/operators/promoters deliberately created audio and visual content which mimicked/reproduced the features such as name, voice, mannerism, manner of singing, photograph, image, likeness, persona and other attributes of his personality. |
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The Defendant No 2 uploaded a video on its social media channel on YouTube, wherein the Defendant was seen promoting / advertising a step wise guideline for unauthorized conversion of any text or speech or voice recording or audio file into the Plaintiff's voice by using the AI platform of Defendant No.3 |
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The Defendant No 3 is an AI platform that allows conversion of any speech, voice recording audio file into the Plaintiff's voice by using Real Voice Cloning (RVC) method and about 456 songs from the Plaintiff's repertoire are unauthorizedly uploaded onto the AI Platform of the Defendant |
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2. |
Defendant no. 9 is a restaurant/pub |
The Defendant for commercial gains used the Plaintiff's image and name for hosting an event in Bengaluru |
|
3. |
Defendant nos. 11 to 23 |
Commercially exploited Plaintiff's publicity rights, goodwill and reputation i.e. by advertising, promoting and offering for sale various merchandise such as posters, caricatures, face masks, mugs, magnet etc., bearing the Plaintiff's image, name, photograph on various e-commerce websites |
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4. |
Defendant Nos. 24 to 25 |
Allowed its users/members of the general public to create, store, search for and share GIFs comprising of short video recordings of the Plaintiff's performances which also exploit the Plaintiff's image, likeness and persona |
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5. |
Defendant Nos. 26-31 |
The Defendants are unknown entities which have registered the domain names such as arijitsingh.com, arijitsingh.in etc., containing the whole of the Plaintiff's name and when accessed the website redirected to a third party website |
The Plaintiff after becoming aware of such acts filed the present suit before the Hon'ble High Court of Bombay seeking relief.
Analysis of the Court
The Hon'ble Court of Bombay took cognizance of the matter and made following observations in the case:
That celebrities are entitled to protection of the facets of their personality such as their name, images, likeness, voice, signature, etc., against unauthorized commercial exploitation by third parties.
- That Defendants' unauthorized use of Plaintiff's personality traits such as name, voice, photograph, image, likeness, persona and other attributes of his personality for commercial gains and the making of AI tools available that enable the conversion/appropriation/manipulation of any voice into that of a celebrity without his/her permission constitute violation of the Plaintiff's personality identity, rights and public persona.
- Furthermore, the Hon'ble court also held that the act of the Defendant does not fall under the ambit of freedom of speech and expression as the Defendants were engaged in wrongful exploitation of Plaintiff's personality rights. The Court also observed that though the Freedom of Speech and expression allows critique and commentary, it does not grant the license to exploit a celebrity's persona for commercial gain.
Based on the above observation the Hon'ble Court passed an ex-parte ad-interim injunction which may be operated as a dynamic injunction against the Defendants and restrained them from violating the personal rights of the Plaintiff in any form for any commercial/personal gains and further directed to remove/cancel/suspend impugned domain names or transfer it in the name of the Plaintiff.
Conclusion
As technology continues to evolve, the misuse and misappropriation of its advancements pose significant challenges, particularly in the realm of AI. The rapid growth and accessibility of AI tools have made it easier than ever to create and distribute content that leverages the likeness and persona of celebrities without their consent. This raises critical concerns about publicity rights. The ease of generating realistic deepfakes and manipulated media has blurred the lines between authenticity and imitation, though it is not the first time that celebrities have raised their voices and concerns against the misuse of technology and have taken measures and assistance of the court to protect their personality rights, it would however be interesting to see as to how our laws evolve in future to meet the challenges posed by AI.
Footnotes
2. COM IPR SUIT (L) NO.23443 OF 2024
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