Personality Rights in Peril: Addressing AI-generated Cloning through Indian Legal Frameworks

INTRODUCTION

The emerging technology of generative AI has made it easier than ever before to create realistic cloning of voices, images and mannerisms- whether through deepfake videos or AI-generated covers- and presents new threats to individuals’ personality and publicity rights. In India, personality rights (often called the “right of publicity”) are not governed by an explicit statute, and are typically protected through laws dealing with privacy, defamation, tort and intellectual property. However, recent litigation indicates that the courts are starting to acknowledge the unauthorized AI-based use of an individual’s likeness, voice or persona requires protection. This article examines the contours of personality rights in India and the legal responses to AI cloning, examines the deficits and harms, and then considers reform pathways for India.

UNDERSTANDING PERSONALITY RIGHTS

Personality rights allow an individual to safeguard their persona and have a legal right to control the commercial as well as the reputational use of aspects of their identity, including their name, image, likeness, voice, signature, and other distinguishing attributes —as affirmed in Titan Industries Ltd. v. Ramkumar Jewellers (2012)[i]. Personality rights also recognize the principles of autonomy, dignity and protecting celebrities and public figures, from being exploited without their permission.

In the age of AI-generated content, dealing with the phenomenon of cloning voices and faces, has raised significant issues surrounding personality rights and their enforceability. As such synthetic media is widely accessible, the risk of someone’s personality being used without consent, either deceased or living, for entertainment, satire, advertisement or even misinformation, will drastically multiply. Such issues require dedicated examination on personality rights and their implications, especially within the framework of Indian jurisprudence.

The justification for recognizing and enforcing personality rights in the context of AI can be analysed through three foundational lenses- First, under privacy concerns; Second, to prevent unauthorized commercial exploitation of an artist’s identity; Third, the ethical purposes. [ii]

Privacy Justification

Personality right is derived from the larger constitutional right to privacy as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. This principle was reiterated by the Supreme Court in R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu (1994)[iii] — better known as the Auto Shankar case — where the Court asserted that there exist individual’s legitimate right and interest to control the commercial use of their identity. The courts ruled that private matters cannot be published without consent unless derived from public records, emphasizing a balance between freedom of press and privacy right.

Commercial Misappropriation Justification

Another justification for its protection is to prevent unauthorized commercial exploitation of an individual’s identity. In Shivaji Rao Gaikwad v. Varsha Productions (2014)[iv], the Madras High Court recognized the right of a celebrity to prevent misuse of their image, style, and even catchphrases in a film intended to imitate them without consent. The court observed that public figures are entitled to its protection from unauthorized exploitation.

Ethical Justification

In addition to the legal underpinnings, personality rights are ethically significant because they maintain respect for personal identity and individual autonomy. In the case of AI-generated cloning, where a person’s likeness and voice can be modulated to engage in or say things they never did, the concern becomes particularly stark.[v]

While these rights are continuously on the rise, India still does not have a codified law that recognizes or regulates personality rights, particularly concerning AI and digital technologies. Nevertheless, the courts have gradually broadened the protective dimensions of personality rights through analogies to constitutional rights, intellectual property law, and tort principles.

Rise of AI-generated Cloning and Deepfakes

The quick evolution of generative AI technologies - in particular, real-voice cloning and deepfake generation technologies - represents a dramatic change for the realm of digital identity and content creation. For example, there are now open-source voice cloning algorithms called Retrieval-Based Voice Conversion (RVC)'s which can create remarkably accurate audio within seconds with just a small amount of audio input.[vi] Platforms like Jammable, TopMediai, and other applications powered with RVC can boast voice cloning accuracy of 95%, making it incredibly easy for anyone, regardless of technical expertise, to imitate the voice of any public figure, actor, or singer.[vii]

These advancements have opened up opportunities for creative exploration but also presents significant risk to privacy, Intellectual property, and personality rights. AI cloning operates on large datasets often publicly available recordings, social media videos, and song performances to train models. This raises serious copyright, data protection and ethical concerns.

Even though jurisprudence on AI cloning is still in its infancy stage in India, courts have started looking at these issues proactively. A series of recent high-profile cases marked a turning point in judicial recognition of personality rights against AI misuse;

Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India & Ors (2023)[viii]

In this case, Anil Kapoor, the actor, has filed an action against a number of parties, including John Doe defendants, related to the deepfake alteration of his persona, including the production of objectionable GIFs, cartoon versions of himself, and employing his image on adult websites. The alleged deepfake content has used artificial intelligence to simulate his likeness, facial features, and voice to cause reputational damage and commercial exploitation.

The Delhi High Court made an imperatively worded decision, that unauthorized use of AI content using celebrities’ images and voices is an invasion of privacy, creates a false legacy, and inflicts emotional harm on the celebrity. The Court restrained the defendants from using AI, machine learning, face morphing, and deep fake technology to replicate or misappropriate Mr. Kapoor's name, likeness, image, voice or persona for financial benefit.

[Image Sources: Shutterstock]

Jaikishan Kakubhai Saraf alias Jackie Shroff v. The Peppy Store & Others (2024)[ix]

In this case, seasoned actor Jackie Shroff sued 18 defendants, including an artificial intelligence chatbot that improperly used Shroff's name, names (Jackie, jaggu dada), likeness, and voice to monetize it with online users. He also took issue with uses related to merchandise, likenesses, wall art and videos that might disparage him.

The Delhi High Court issued an ex parte interim injunction preventing defendants from utilizing his voice, name, similar aliases, persona or likeness without consent and for their commercial purposes. The court was careful to maintain the freedom of artistic expression, and allowed the use of satire in videos called Jackie Shroff is Savage, and Jackie Shroff Thug Life on YouTube, and stated not every use of people rights was unlawful, especially when implicated in protected speech or fine art, including parody.

Arijit Singh v. Codible Ventures LLP & Others (2024)[x]

In this landmark case, it highlighted the increasing risk of AI-facilitated exploitation, famous playback singer Arijit Singh sued 38 defendants including AI developers, bar owners, virtual reality event organizers, ecommerce websites, and domain registrars. The case was a watershed moment in Indian law regarding personality rights, particularly involving commercial and algorithmic exploitation of a celebrity (or famous person's) identity without permission. Applications have been used to synthesize his voice with precision, converting text and speech into audio that mimicked his style.

The Delhi High Court noted the seriousness and extent of the infringement, and granted Singh an ex parte interim injunction. The Court held that when AI tools replicated a celebrity's voice and used it for commercial gain without their prior consent or approval, it was a direct breach of their personality rights and publicity rights. The Court rejected a fair use, parody and/or public domain defence, noting that impersonations of an individual in a digital format would not only threaten the distinction of a performer's artistic identity, but also their economic interest.

These cases all illustrate the increasing judicial readiness to limit AI-related impersonation in cases where there isn't a specific statutory provision. Courts synthesized various legal regimes including privacy law, tort law, intellectual property law, and injunctive relief and provided meaningful protection. Nonetheless, reactive litigation will not provide a holistic solution. The fact that AI-generated clones can be created and disseminated so easily and anonymously on digital platforms calls for structural legal reform. The next part will discuss the statutory and regulatory gaps that enable such misuse to proliferate.

Legal Gaps in India

There currently doesn't a focused framework on AI-generation cloning in India's legal landscape. It is also ineffective at the moment in protecting personality rights for individual actors. Some international jurisdictions are now developing dedicated laws to the area (like Tennessee's "Elvis Act" or the EU's AI Act), while Indian law is still adapting existing statutes, common law doctrines, and judicial creatures to confront the complex layered structure of technological, identity, and consented norms.

India recognizes artists as performers with performer’s rights under Section 38A[xi] and 38B[xii] Copyright Act, 1957. However, this does not serve the rights of people whose voices are reproduced through AI, as a ‘performer’ under the Act is only a person who makes a performance, and their rights only extend to the visual or acoustic presentation which they made. This is why when voices are cloned via AI, only personality rights are available.

In like manner, Section 14[xiii] of the Trademarks Act, 1999 for example, allows for the Registrar to refuse marks which falsely suggest a connection to a living person without the living persons consent. However, it provides only scant assistance when a likeness of a person like their personality or voice is put to non-commercial use on goods or apps or websites when it is not registered. There are many distinctive personality characteristics, such as nuances in an artist’s voice or movement or dance, which cannot be trademarked separately unless it has the style of a mark, phrase or logo.

The Information Technology Act, 2000 deals with identity theft (Section 66C)[xiv], impersonation (Section 66D)[xv], and breaches of privacy (Section 66E but while these provisions are not poor as provisions dealing with conventional cybercrime, the provisions are very deficient for legislation dealing with AI deepfakes. Section 67[xvi] may apply to obscene deepfakes however it does not tax manipulated content that is not obscene.  

In Krishna Kishore Singh v. Sarla A. Saraogi, 2023, the Delhi High Court ruled both the right to privacy and right to publicity lapse upon death, so dead celebrities have no access to AI cloning protection, unlike the United States who have posthumously granted personality rights.

Overall, India's present legislative framework is inadequate and lacking cohesion to deal with the subtle, ever-changing challenges posed by AI-generated cloning and there are many gaps in personality rights' protection in the digital age.

The Conclusion & Recommendations 

As AI technologies continue to develop and be disruptive to the creative and digital space, AI is rapidly disrupting the creative and digital space and India needs to urgently adopt an effective and integrated legal framework for personality rights. Current law is disconnected, reactive and lacks enforcement and consistency. With increased misuse of AI-generated content, we need clear law to protect our identity, dignity and economic rights. The recommendations below set forth a way forward.

Codification of Personality and Publicity Rights: There is now an urgent need to develop a specific legal framework to truly encompass the entire scope of personality rights (name, voice, images, likeness) - and importantly to include post mortem rights for heirs to pursue and monetize the identity of the deceased.

Regulating AI and Deepfakes: Clear disclosures should be mandated for all AI created works (with an example label "This was AI generated"), requiring prior consent to use persons attributes, and to create enforceable removal standards. As described in previous sections the MeitY advisory is not a legal mechanism or undertaking.

Updating Copyright and Trademark Laws: The Copyright Act should clarify whether styles copied through AI to "mimic" are "performances", or, on it could be viewed as derivative works. More rights and protection for the exploitation of individuals identity is required under Section 38B moral rights. In relation to trademark and how they must expand the way misuse happens now with digital forms of avatars and voice assistants.

Consent-Based Licensing Models: An independent centralized licensing scheme is needed so that an artist or their estate can grant permission to license the use of identified identity traits for time limited AI and AI copy of likeness, this will allow platforms i.e. YouTube and Spotify to seek consent and pay an artists/stated royalty.

In conclusion, it is important at this point in time that India puts in place a holistic legal framework as protection of personality rights, in view of the dangers emanating from AI generated cloning.

Author: Aastha Gupta, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us via email to chhavi@khuranaandkhurana.com or at  Khurana & Khurana, Advocates and IP Attorney.

[i] Titan Indus. Ltd. v. Ramkumar Jewellers, 50 PTC 486 (Del. 2012)

[ii] Julia Anna Joseph and Snehal Khemka,Voice Clones and Legal Tones: The Intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Posthumous Personality Rights, SpicyIP (Sept. 9, 2024), https://spicyip.com/2024/09/voice-clones-and-legal-tones-the-intersection-of-artificial-intelligence-and-post-humous-personality-rights.html.

[iii] R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1995) 2 S.C.C. 161 (India)

[iv] Shivaji Rao Gaikwad v. Varsha Productions, 2015 (62) PTC 351 (Mad.)

[v] Gurkaran Singh, Guarding the Persona: Personality Rights, Jurisprudence, and the Threat of Technology, The Fine Print Forum (June 13, 2025), https://thefineprintforum.com/guarding-the-persona-personality-rights-jurisprudence-and-the-threat-of-technology/ digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu+3

[vi] Dipak G. Parmar, AI Voice Cloning: How a Bollywood Veteran Set a Legal Precedent, WIPO Mag., Apr. 17, 2025, https://www.wipo.int/web/wipo-magazine/articles/ai-voice-cloning-how-a-bollywood-veteran-set-a-legal-precedent-73631.

[vii] Id.

[viii] Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India & Ors., CS (COMM) 652/2023 (Delhi H.C. Sept. 20, 2023)

[ix] Jaikishan Kakubhai Saraf alias Jackie Shroff v. The Peppy Store & Ors., CS (COMM) 389/2024 (Del. HC May 15, 2024).

[x] Arijit Singh v. Codible Ventures LLP & Ors., COM IPR SUIT (L) No. 23443 of 2024, 2024 SCC OnLine Bom 2445 (Bom. H.C. July 26, 2024).

[xi] The Copyright Act, 1957, § 38A, No. 14, Acts of Parliament, 1957 (India)

[xii] The Copyright Act, 1957, § 38B, No. 14, Acts of Parliament, 1957 (India)

[xiii] The Trademarks Act, 1999, § 14, No. 47, Acts of Parliament, 1999 (India)

[xiv] The Information Technology Act, 2000, § 66C, No. 21, Acts of Parliament, 2000 (India)

[xv] The Information Technology Act, 2000, § 66D, No. 21, Acts of Parliament, 2000 (India)

[xvi] The Information Technology Act, 2000, § 67, No. 21, Acts of Parliament, 2000 (India)