Whose Face is It Anyway? Bollywood’s Big Fight For Identity

But that may soon be a thing of the past — the celebs are taking steps to protect themselves from such exploitation.Over the past few months, several high-profile Bollywood personalities, including Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Akshay Kumar and Karan Johar have sought legal remedies to protect their personality rights.

Personality rights, also called publicity rights, refer to a person’s right to benefit, commercially or otherwise, from their identity or persona. While a celebrity can profit from their fame by endorsing a product for a fee, their image cannot be used by another person to promote a product without consent.

These rights are routinely violated in India, which, unlike California, does not have a dedicated law protecting personality rights. But that may soon change.

“The Courts have recognised personality rights as being a subset of the right to privacy, though, says Ajay Bhargava, Senior Partner of reputed law firm Khaitan & Co. “As of now, however, there does not appear to be any concrete plan for introducing legislation in relation to personality rights in India,” he clarifies.

From Sachin Tendulkar’s slightly nasal voice to Amitabh Bachchan’s baritone, all have been mimicked or referenced across platforms.

So, what changed?

In 2023, Anil Kapoor sued several websites and platforms for commercially exploiting his name, image and voice, as well as the catchphrase ‘Jhakaas’ (Marathi for ‘awesome’), which became synonymous with him after the 1985 film Yudh. During the promotions of The Night Manager, the actor also refused to participate in any collaborations.

This was followed by his Ram Lakhan co-star Jackie Shroff appealing to the Delhi High Court in 2024 to protect his personality rights by prohibiting the use of his name, image and even nickname (Bhidu) without permission.

Hrithik Roshan also recently approached the Courts, accusing several known and unknown persons of exploiting his identity for commercial purposes.

Sanam Singh Atzeri, Founding Lawyer Gladhurst says, “Celebrities are more aware of their images being used without consent and this is an area of the law that is evolving quite rapidly with ‘deepfakes’ and ai images surfacing on the net. In time we will have to enact some laws for this like for example Denmark has legislation against use of images and deep fakes.”

The first instance of an Indian celebrity asserting their personality rights, dates back to 2002, when singer Daler Mehndi, credited with popularising Bhangra music worldwide, approached the court over unauthorised manufacture of dolls in his likeness.

Ajay Bhargava says, “Indian Courts are increasingly protecting celebrities’ personality rights, including from AI-generated misuse. Advances in Artificial Intelligence have opened newer ways of misappropriating a celebrity’s identity, including their image, voice, name, mannerisms, and other attributes such as deepfakes and AI avatars. Such misappropriation is often for commercial gain and can cause reputational and commercial losses to celebrities. The responses of Indian Courts clearly indicate their intent to protect celebrities’ publicity rights, as well as the general public against deception.”

Box: Manoj Bajpayee clarifies fake video

Recently, Bollywood actor Manoj Bajpayee fell victim to a deepfake video circulating on social media. Allegedly created by the IT wing of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the video attempted to portray the actor’s support for the party.

Reacting to the now-deleted video on X, Bajpayee clarified: “I would like to publicly state that I have no association or allegiance with any political party. The video being circulated is a fake, patched-up edit of an ad I did for Prime Video,” he posted on X. “I sincerely appeal to everyone sharing it to stop spreading such distorted content and urge people not to engage with or encourage such misleading content,” the actor said.