The Business of Fame: Why Personality Rights matter for Celebrities and Athletes?

Introduction

In this generating of such fast-paced world, celebrity status is often seen as a badge of honor. It expresses not just talent and achievement, but the long journey of effort and perseverance that brings individuals into the public eye. For most of the people, reaching such point in life feels like a dream where their dedication finally shines in the spotlight. People from almost all over the world are naturally curious about the lives of celebrities they admire but this curiosity often pushes the media to cross boundaries and misuse a celebrity’s identity, name, or reputation just to make money.

Celebrities work hard for the fame they earn, and when others take advantage of it by using their popularity for personal profits or spreading false stories, it becomes important to protect their rights. Personality rights are not only about safeguarding their name, fame and privacy but also about ensuring that they themselves can benefit from their own popularity and the right to privacy. As this idea of “celebrity status” becoming a commercial asset grew, intellectual property laws stepped in to help celebrities earn from their identity while also protecting them from misuse.

Who is a Celebrity?

As per the Oxford Reference Dictionary of Media and Communication, Celebrity is defined “A person who is widely recognized in a society and commands public and media attention.”(1)  The word ‘Celebrity’ is derived from a Latin word “celebritatem” which means “the state of becoming popular.” Being recognized in the public eye and having a persona that commands a certain degree of media and public attention can be attributed to as a parameter for qualifying as a celebrity. Being recognized as a “celebrity” is considered like a mark of achievement in society. Today, actors, authors, artists, politicians, models, athletes, musicians, singers, TV personalities, well-known business leaders, and reality show stars are all seen as celebrities. Anyone who manages to grab the public’s attention can become one. It is how the public views a person that decides whether they are considered a celebrity or not.

 

What are Personality rights?

Personality is what makes one person different from another and helps one recognize and understand people in everyday life. The way someone thinks, behaves and presents themselves to the world represents their personality, through which, a person creates an image of who they are and how they are expected to act in society.

When a celebrity wants to protect their personality rights, there are basically two important parts to it. First is the right to stop others from using their name, photo, or image to make money without permission. This is usually treated as a case of “passing off” and is known as the celebrity’s publicity right, which falls under intellectual property law. The second part is the right to privacy, which simply means the right to be left alone and not have their personal life invaded.

 

Publicity Rights

Publicity rights are a person’s right to earn money from their own identity or fame. Celebrities have a strong reputation in the public, and they have the right to benefit from how the public sees them. These rights are similar to merchandising rights, which means that if someone uses a celebrity’s name, photo, or image without permission to make money, it counts as misuse or misappropriation of the celebrity’s identity. This can also be treated as an offence of passing off under the provisions of  intellectual property law.

 

Privacy Rights

The conept of privacy was introduced in 1890 by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis in their much known Harvard Law Review article titled “The Right to Privacy.” (1) wherein, they argued that every person deserves “the right to be let alone,” which means that everyyone has the freedom to keep certain aspects of their life private and away from public attention.

In India, the Supreme Court has confirmed that privacy is a part of the fundamental right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. (3). The landmark judgment in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (4) clearly states that for every individual, privacy is essential for dignity, autonomy, and personal freedom. It prevents illegal recordings and unauthorized distribution of performances and protecting performers, especially those who may not have the resources or power to defend themselves from being unfairly exploited.

 

Current Legal Status in India  

In India, with the rise of sports and entertainment industry, the concept of personality rights gained prominence along with the right to privacy. As of now, there doesn’t exist any single codified law that governs Celebrity Rights, however, there are several different laws that take care of the protection of celebrity rights such as the common law principal of passing off, the constitution of India under article 21 that is Right to Life and Personal Liberty, The Copyright Act, 1957(5); The Trade Marks Act, 1999(6) and the Information Technology Act, 2000 (7). The Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023(8) also criminalizes acts such as defamation and stalking that intrude upon privacy of a person.

The rise of personality rights in India began with the famous case of R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu. (9) which is also known as the Auto Shankar case. In this case, the Supreme Court held that every person has the right to control how their identity is used for commercial purposes. With this, Supreme Court acknowledged that individuals, especially celebrities have a genuine interest in preventing others from misusing their image or personal story for profit. The Supreme Court described privacy as the “right to be left alone” and ruled that no one can publish details about someone’s private life without their permission, unless the information is already part of public records. This judgment has laid the foundation for stronger protection of personality and privacy rights in India.

The Delhi High Court, in the landmark case of Titan Industries v. Ramkumar Jewellers (10) defined the concept of publicity rights as ‘The right to control commercial use of human identity is the right to publicity’ and also provided guidelines regarding the liability for infringement of right of publicity.

In several cases, the personal lives of prominent personalities get turned into movie scripts which puts up a question that, can a celebrity actually own the story of their own life? By the legal aspects, one usually can't put a copyright on things that are historical and factual. That is where the argument starts that whether their life story counts as a "historical fact" that anyone can use? In the famous case of Phoolan Devi vs Shekhar Kapur (11), Phoolan Devi herself spoke out, that the movie made about her life, twisted the truth. She went to court to stop it, explaining that she had already put her past criminal activities behind her and had begun a new life as a married woman and a public servant in politics. The court then decided to have a deep look over this issue and said that before letting the movie be released, they had to fully examine how the film would impact the private life of an individual like her. This judgement established that a celebrity can indeed protect their name and image using their constitutional rights.

In 2023, Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor sued various different parties in the Delhi High Court (12) to stop the illegal use of his identity, against AI-generated deepfakes, unauthorized merchandise, and the theft of his famous "Jhakaas" dialogue. The Court issued a strong order, stating that no one can use his name, voice, image, or manner of speaking for commercial gain without his permission.

In November, 2025, The Delhi High Court issued an interim order in favor of famous podcaster and content creator Raj Shamani (13) prohibiting the use of his content without his consent on many internet sites, as well as by unidentified persons, who were infringing upon Shamani's name, photo, voice, image and “Figuring it Out” podcast through artificial-intelligence produced deep-fakes, false endorsements, impersonations and unauthorized posting of content. The High Court ruled that his personality rights are protected under the law and ordered that all content that infringed on his rights be removed; further stated that the platforms are required to provide the identities of those who uploaded such infringing content. Additionally, the court stated that parodies and satire related content may require further court action.

Actress Aishwarya Rai also reached the Delhi High Court (14) for protection from extensive misuse through fake social media websites, deepfake AI video, invented or created photographs (morph content), impersonation of her through merchandise, impersonating accounts on social media, and misleading use of her name associated with products.  The Court issued an expansive ex parte ad-interim injunction protecting the personality rights of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (includes her name, image, likeness, voice, and other identifying attributes) and held that such exploitation would result in damage to the reputation and finances of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, enjoined all defendants from using her name/likeness for any commercial or misleading purposes, and ordered intermediaries (i.e., Google, Meta, YouTube, etc.) to remove URLs that infringe on her personality rights, block access to defendants' accounts that post infringing material, and preserve/upload user data and information to assist in further investigation.

Are personality rights only for celebrities?

The Supreme Court, in the landmark cases of Puttuswamy (15) and Rajagopal (16), held that every Indian has a fundamental right to privacy, which helps them protect their personal life. However, this right to privacy isn’t strong enough when it comes to commercial aspects as it cannot stop people from taking an advantage by stealing your image.

This weakness of the right to privacy was highlighted in the T-Series case (17) wherein T-Series wanted to make a movie about a victim of honor killing, but the victim's husband, Sukhwinder Singh tried to stop it. He argued that since he would be in the movie, his personal rights would be violated. The Delhi High Court in this case held that only celebrities can enjoy personality right, and the judgment which was given by the court in Puttaswamy case is merely advisory and not binding. Based on which, Sukhwinder was denied any relief. This and many other similar judgments have created a divide between right to privacy and the second category, right to publicity, out of which the latter is the one which is enjoyed by celebrities and protect the commercial aspect. However, the Delhi High Court's ruling in the recent Krishna Kishore Singh case (18) stated that the right to control your own identity and life story is not just for celebrities, it should be a right for everyone, but this directly clashes with the older ruling that said only celebrities get that special money-making right. This creates a mess because even if the court says a regular person can now control their story, that ruling alone isn't practical; without clear, proper laws from the government spelling out exactly how a common person is supposed to enforce this right, the court's good intention is just a nice idea that the average person can’t easily use in real life.

Conclusion

Personality rights have emerged as a top priority in an era where high-profile individuals may be targeted by unscrupulous individuals via popular platforms like social media, etc. While in India there isn't any one centralised piece of legislation relating specifically to celebrity rights, several laws and judgements really provide for the safeguarding of the identity of celebrities, their right to privacy and their rights to profit financially from their fame. The courts have historically been unwilling to support celebrities in protecting their personality rights and this has been demonstrated by a number of different and sometimes conflicting judicial decisions, from the landmark ruling of Auto Shankar to more recent decisions regarding actors such as Anil Kapoor. On the other hand, the most recent verdicts have demonstrated that individuals who do not have a significant public persona still have a right to determine how their name, image, and reputation are used. However, because the law is not consistently interpreted the need is taking more shape for new, clearly defined laws that will protect both the celebrity and ordinary person.

As technology continues to expand and increase the potential for an individual’s identity being misappropriated there will be a growing need for a stronger set of legal protections. Thus, although probably not intended to be viewed in the same light as celebrity, personality rights, due to their relationship with one's sense of dignity, equity and the individual’s fundamental right of self-determination, are extremely important.

Author: Jagrit Dembla, 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.

References –

·Jan Oster, ‘Personality Rights and Intellectual Property as “Rights of Others”’ in Wolfgang Benedek, Matthias C. Kettemann and Markus Möller (eds), Specific Limitations to Media Freedom (Cambridge University Press 2015)

·Tabrez Ahmad and Satya Ranjan Swain, 'Celebrity Rights: Protection under IP Laws' (2011) 16 J. Intell. Prop. Rts. 7.

·Kanu Priya, ‘Intellectual Property and Hegelian Justification’ (2008) NUJS Law Review

·Madhu Gadodia, 'Personality Rights, AI and the way forward' (WIPO IP CONV GE 2/24)

(1)     Daniel Chandler and Rod Munday, A Dictionary of Media and Communication (Oxford University Press 2011).

(2)     Samuel D. Warren & Louis D. Brandeis, The Right to Privacy, 4 Harv. L. Rev. 193 (1890).

(3)     Constitution of India, Article 21.

(4)     Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1.

(5)     Copyright Act, 1957

(6)     Trade Marks Act, 1999

(7)     Information Technology, Act 2000

(8)     Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023

(9)     R Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu (1994) 6 SCC 632

(10)   Titan Industries Ltd v. Ramkumar Jewellers 2012 SCC OnLine Del 2382

(11)   Phoolan Devi v. Shekhar Kapur 1995 (32) DRJ 142

(12)   Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India CS(COMM) 652/2023 and I.A. 18237/2023-18243/2023

(13)   Raj Shamani v. John Doe 2025 SCC OnLine Del 8540

(14)   Aishwarya Rai Bachchan v. Aishwaryaworld.com 2025 SCC OnLine 5943

(15)   Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1

(16)   R Rajagopal v State of Tamil Nadu (1994) 6 SCC 632

(17)   Super Cassettes Industries Ltd and Anr v Dreamline Reality Movies and ors 2024 SCC OnLine P&H 661

(18)   Krishna Kishore Singh v Sarla A Saraogi CS(COMM) 187/2021, I.A. 10551/2021 & I.A. 14436/2021