Right of Publicity in India – Celebrities, Sports Personalities and the Emerging Challenge of Artificial Intelligence

The right of publicity is the legal right of an individual to control the commercial use of their identity their name, image, likeness, voice, signature and other recognizable attributes of their persona. It is a right that sits at the intersection of intellectual property law, personality rights and the law of torts and its significance has grown exponentially as the commercial value of celebrity identity has expanded across advertising, entertainment, merchandising, digital media and, most recently, artificial intelligence-generated content. In India, the right of publicity has no dedicated statutory home. It has developed through judicial decisions drawn from constitutional guarantees, trademark law, copyright law and the law of passing off, producing a body of doctrine that is sophisticated in parts but incomplete as a whole and increasingly strained by the demands that emerging technologies are placing upon it.

The commercial logic underlying the right of publicity is straightforward. A celebrity whether a film actor, a cricketer, a musician or a social media personality generates economic value through the association of their identity with goods, services and causes. That value is created through years of investment in talent, training and public engagement. The right of publicity ensures that the economic fruits of that investment accrue to the individual whose identity generates them, rather than being appropriated without consent by third parties who contribute nothing to the creation of the celebrity’s persona but seek to exploit its commercial magnetism.

In India, where the entertainment industry and professional sport command extraordinary public attention and where celebrity endorsement is a multi-billion-rupee commercial ecosystem, the right of publicity has particular economic salience. The decisions of the High Courts principally the Delhi and Bombay High Courts have progressively articulated the contours of this right and the emergence of AI-generated content that can reproduce, simulate and fabricate celebrity identity with unprecedented fidelity has made the doctrinal clarification of this right more urgent than ever.

The Constitutional Foundation

The right of publicity in India rests, at its deepest level, on the constitutional right to privacy recognized by the Supreme Court in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017) 10 SCC 1. In this landmark nine-judge bench decision, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the right to privacy is a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. The court held that privacy encompasses not merely freedom from surveillance and data collection but also informational privacy the right of individuals to control information about themselves and what several concurring opinions described as the right to personal autonomy and dignity.

The Puttaswamy decision did not address the right of publicity directly. However, its recognition of the individual’s right to control personal information and its affirmation of dignitary autonomy as a constitutional value have provided the doctrinal scaffolding on which subsequent decisions on publicity rights have been constructed. If an individual has a constitutionally protected right to control personal information, it follows that the commercial exploitation of that information the use of a person’s name, image or likeness for commercial gain without consent engages constitutional interests that extend beyond mere commercial damage.

The right of publicity has a dignitary dimension that distinguishes it from purely proprietary claims. Unauthorized use of a celebrity’s image in an advertisement does not merely deprive the celebrity of an endorsement fee it appropriates their identity and associates it with a commercial message that the celebrity may not endorse, potentially damaging their reputation, their other endorsement relationships and their carefully managed public persona. This dignitary injury, grounded in autonomy and self-determination, connects the right of publicity to constitutional values in a manner that purely proprietary analysis does not capture.

The Statutory Landscape – An Incomplete Framework

Unlike the United States, where several states have enacted dedicated right of publicity statutes or the United Kingdom, where related personality rights are addressed through the law of passing off and the tort of misappropriation, India has no statute that expressly recognises or codifies the right of publicity. The protection available under existing law must be assembled from several overlapping statutory and common law sources, each of which provides partial coverage but none of which provides a comprehensive regime.

The Trade Marks Act, 1999 is relevant where a celebrity has registered their name or image as a trademark. Section 29 of the Act protects registered marks against infringement and a celebrity who has secured registration of their name as several Indian cricketers and film personalities have done may rely on trademark infringement as a cause of action against unauthorized commercial use. However, trademark protection is limited to the goods and services for which the mark is registered and the registration process itself is not available to protect every aspect of a celebrity’s identity.

The Copyright Act, 1957 is relevant to photographs, films and sound recordings that capture a celebrity’s image or voice. The copyright in a photograph vests in the photographer or the person who commissioned it, not in the subject of the photograph. This means that copyright law, by itself, provides celebrities with limited direct protection against the commercial use of images in which they appear. However, where a celebrity has created original artistic or literary works a musician’s recorded performance, a filmmaker’s directorial work they hold copyright in those works and may restrain unauthorized reproduction.

The law of passing off provides the most broadly applicable common law basis for publicity rights claims in India. As the courts have progressively extended passing off doctrine to protect personality and image rights, it has become the primary vehicle through which celebrities assert the commercial dimension of their right of publicity.

Judicial Development of the Right of Publicity

The Indian judiciary has been the primary site of the development of publicity rights doctrine. The High Courts have, in a series of significant decisions, recognized the right of publicity as an independent cause of action and defined its scope, its limits and the remedies available for its violation.

The Delhi High Court’s decision in ICC Development (International) Ltd. v. Arvee Enterprises (2003 (26) PTC 245 Del) is among the earliest and most significant contributions to the doctrinal development of the right of publicity in India. In this case, the court was called upon to address the use by commercial enterprises of imagery and associations connected to the Cricket World Cup without authorization from the event organizer. The court recognized, explicitly and in clear terms, that the right of publicity is a distinct legal right, separate from copyright and trademark, that vests in individuals and can be transferred, licensed or bequeathed. The court held that every individual has a right to control the commercial use of their identity and that unauthorized appropriation of that identity for commercial advantage constitutes an actionable wrong.

The ICC Development case established several propositions that have become foundational to Indian publicity rights law. It confirmed that the right of publicity is a property right not merely a personal right sounding in dignity and that it has economic value that the law will protect. It recognized that the right is assignable, meaning that celebrities may license the commercial use of their identity to third parties and those licensees acquire enforceable rights. And it identified the elements of a publicity rights claim: the plaintiff must have an identity with commercial value, the defendant must have used that identity for commercial purposes without consent and the plaintiff must have suffered damage as a result.

The Delhi High Court returned to the right of publicity in the context of sporting identity in Titan Industries Ltd. v. Ramkumar Jewellers (2012 (50) PTC 486 Del). In this case, the court examined the unauthorized use of a photograph of Amitabh Bachchan and his wife in an advertisement for a jewellery retailer. The court held that a celebrity’s persona their image, name and associated characteristics is entitled to protection as a species of intellectual property. The court drew on American right of publicity jurisprudence, particularly the Ninth Circuit’s decision in White v. Samsung Electronics, to articulate the principle that even attributes that are not themselves protectable by copyright or trademark may be protected where they are sufficiently distinctive to identify a particular individual and have acquired commercial value through that individual’s efforts.

The Bombay High Court’s landmark decision in Shivaji Rao Gaikwad (Rajinikanth) v. Varsha Productions (2015) addressed an attempt by a film production company to use the name, image and persona of the actor Rajinikanth in a film without his consent. The court granted an injunction, recognizing that the actor’s persona the sum of his name, voice, mannerisms and screen identity was entitled to legal protection against unauthorized commercial exploitation. The court held that the right of publicity extends beyond the literal reproduction of a celebrity’s image to encompass the use of identifying characteristics that, taken together, are recognizably attributable to that individual.

Sports Personalities – The Cricketing Dimension

India’s relationship with cricket is unlike its relationship with any other form of sport or entertainment. The commercial value of cricketers’ identities particularly those of members of the national team and of franchises in the Indian Premier League is extraordinary and the unauthorized appropriation of cricketing identity for commercial purposes has generated significant litigation.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India and individual cricketers have been active in asserting publicity rights and related intellectual property claims. The right of image in cricket has been particularly contested in the context of fantasy sports platforms, trading cards, video games and unauthorized merchandise, each of which involves the commercial use of players’ names, statistics, images and associated attributes without consent or compensation.

The Delhi High Court’s decision in Sourav Ganguly v. Tata Tea Ltd. examined an early instance of the commercial use of a cricketer’s identity without consent specifically the use of Ganguly’s name and image in a promotional campaign without his authorization. The court affirmed the principle that a cricketer’s identity carries independent commercial value and that its appropriation without consent is actionable.

The question of whether the use of a player’s statistics as opposed to their image or name engages the right of publicity is more complex. Statistics are factual records of public events and are not, in themselves, protectable by copyright or trademark. However, where the presentation of statistics is combined with the player’s name and image in a manner that creates a personalized commercial product as in a fantasy sports platform that builds player profiles for commercial gain the argument that the player’s right of publicity is engaged has considerable force. This issue has been partially addressed in the context of the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s licensing arrangements for digital and fantasy sports platforms, though the matter has not been conclusively resolved by the courts.

The International Cricket Council and the BCCI have developed comprehensive intellectual property licensing frameworks that purport to govern the commercial use of player images and associated attributes. These frameworks operate by contract between the governing body and the players, typically through players’ associations or individual image rights agreements. While contractual licensing is an effective practical mechanism, it is distinct from the independent legal right of publicity a celebrity retains the right of publicity in their persona regardless of whether they have entered into a licensing arrangement and the right subsists even in the absence of registration or formal assignment.

Film Celebrities and the Personality Rights Jurisprudence

The entertainment industry has generated the richest seam of publicity rights litigation in India. Film actors, in particular, have engaged extensively with the courts to protect their personas against unauthorized commercial use and the decisions in these cases have done more to define the contours of the right of publicity in India than those in any other sector.

The Delhi High Court’s decision in Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India & Ors. (2023) is among the most significant recent contributions to Indian publicity rights law. In this case, the court was called upon to address a wide range of unauthorized uses of the actor Anil Kapoor’s name, image, voice and characteristic phrases including, crucially, AI-generated content that simulated his appearance and voice. The court granted an injunction restraining the defendants from using the actor’s personality attributes, including his name, voice, image, likeness, mannerisms and any other feature distinctive to him for any commercial purpose without his consent. The court expressly recognized that the right of publicity extends to AI-generated simulations of a celebrity’s identity and that the technological sophistication of the imitation does not diminish its legal character as an unauthorized appropriation.

The Anil Kapoor decision is notable for several reasons. First, it is one of the first Indian decisions to directly address the intersection of the right of publicity and artificial intelligence, providing a judicial framework however preliminary for evaluating AI-generated content that reproduces celebrity identity. Second, the breadth of the injunction covering not merely the actor’s image but also his voice, mannerisms and characteristic phrases reflects the court’s recognition that the right of publicity protects the totality of a celebrity’s recognizable persona, not merely its most obvious visual manifestation. Third, the decision signals that Indian courts are prepared to move proactively rather than reactively in the face of emerging technological threats to publicity rights.

The Bombay High Court’s decision in Amitabh Bachchan v. Rajat Nagi & Ors. (2022) similarly addressed the proliferation of unauthorized commercial uses of one of India’s most recognizable celebrity identities. The court granted a broad injunction restraining the defendants from using Bachchan’s name, image, voice and persona for commercial purposes without his consent, reaffirming the principle that a celebrity’s identity in all its commercially recognizable dimensions is entitled to comprehensive legal protection.

The Emerging Challenge of Artificial Intelligence

The intersection of artificial intelligence and the right of publicity represents one of the most consequential and least resolved areas of Indian intellectual property law. AI technologies have reached a point of development at which they can generate audio-visual content images, videos, voice recordings, text that reproduces the appearance, voice and mannerisms of real individuals with a fidelity that challenges the ability of ordinary consumers to distinguish the generated content from authentic material. Deepfake technology, large language models, voice cloning software and generative image models are all capable of producing content that exploits a celebrity’s identity in ways that the existing legal framework was not designed to address.

The legal challenges that AI-generated content creates for the right of publicity operate on several levels. At the most basic level, the question is whether the generation of a synthetic image, video or voice recording that depicts a real person without their consent constitutes an unauthorized use of their identity engaging the right of publicity. The answer, in principle, is clearly yes the fact that the reproduction is generated by an algorithm rather than by a human artist or photographer does not change the fundamental character of the act, which is the exploitation of a recognizable identity for commercial or other purposes without consent.

More complex questions arise in relation to the identity of the legally responsible party. An AI model is not a legal person and cannot be held liable. The parties who develop, train, deploy and use AI systems capable of generating celebrity simulations occupy different positions in a chain of causation that the existing law does not clearly address. The developer of an AI model that enables deepfake generation, the platform that makes the model available to users and the individual who uses the model to generate and distribute a specific piece of content occupy legally distinct positions and the allocation of liability among them raises questions that go beyond the existing doctrinal framework.

The training data question adds a further layer of complexity. Large AI models capable of generating realistic celebrity simulations are trained on datasets that include images, audio recordings and other material depicting real people. The collection, processing and use of this training data often without the consent of the individuals depicted potentially engages not only the right of publicity but also copyright law, data protection principles under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the constitutional right to privacy recognized in Puttaswamy. The interaction between these overlapping bodies of law in the AI training context has not yet been authoritatively addressed by Indian courts.

The Delhi High Court’s observations in Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India are a starting point rather than a comprehensive framework. The court’s willingness to extend the right of publicity to AI-generated content is significant, but the decision addresses a relatively straightforward case the defendant was using AI tools to generate clearly commercial content exploiting a recognizable celebrity’s identity. The harder cases where AI-generated content is used for satire or commentary, where it is generated by an autonomous system without specific human direction or where it appears in a context that blurs the line between entertainment and endorsement have yet to be decided.

Deepfakes, Voice Cloning and the Limits of Consent

Deepfake technology and AI voice cloning present specific challenges that deserve separate attention. A deepfake is a synthetic audio-visual recording in which a person’s face or voice is superimposed on or substituted for another person’s in existing footage or generated from scratch using AI models trained on the target individual’s image and voice. The technology has advanced to the point where deepfakes of high-profile celebrities are routinely created and circulated on social media platforms, often in contexts that the subject would find objectionable simulated endorsements of products they have not endorsed, fabricated statements attributed to them or simulated appearances in adult content.

The right of publicity provides the most direct legal basis for challenging deepfakes that involve commercial exploitation of a celebrity’s identity. A deepfake advertisement that depicts a celebrity apparently endorsing a product they have not agreed to endorse is a clear case of unauthorized commercial use of that celebrity’s identity and an injunction and damages should follow under the principles established in the cases discussed above. The technological sophistication of the imitation is not a defence indeed, a high-fidelity deepfake may cause more damage to a celebrity’s reputation and endorsement value than a crude imitation, precisely because consumers may be unable to identify it as fabricated.

Voice cloning the generation of synthetic audio content that reproduces a recognizable individual’s voice using AI raises parallel issues. A celebrity’s voice is as commercially distinctive and personally identified as their face or name. Its reproduction without consent in a commercial context is a violation of the right of publicity on the same analysis as image misappropriation. The Anil Kapoor injunction, which expressly extended to the actor’s voice, provides judicial support for this position.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 – A Complementary Framework

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, which came into force progressively following its enactment, provides a complementary framework for addressing some of the data-related dimensions of celebrity identity appropriation in the AI context. The Act imposes obligations on data fiduciaries entities that collect and process personal data to obtain consent for the processing of personal data and to process data only for the purposes for which consent was given.

A celebrity’s image, voice recording and biometric attributes constitute personal data under the Act. An AI developer who collects such data for the purpose of training a generative model or who uses such data to generate synthetic content depicting the individual, is engaged in data processing that requires consent under the Act. The Act’s consent requirements thus provide an additional avenue of legal challenge against AI-enabled appropriation of celebrity identity, supplementing the right of publicity claim with a data protection cause of action.

The interaction between the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the right of publicity has not yet been authoritatively addressed by Indian courts. Given the rapid development of both the AI landscape and the regulatory framework, this intersection is likely to be the subject of significant litigation in the near future.

The Need for Legislative Reform

The inadequacy of the existing framework assembled from constitutional doctrine, common law passing off, trademark and copyright and nascent data protection regulation to address the full range of publicity rights challenges in the AI era is increasingly apparent. Several features of a comprehensive right of publicity statute, which has been advocated by intellectual property scholars and practitioners, would significantly strengthen the legal position of celebrities and other individuals whose identities are at risk of commercial exploitation.

A dedicated statute would, first, define the right of publicity clearly specifying the attributes it protects, the persons in whom it vests, its duration and its transmissibility. Second, it would specify the acts that constitute a violation of the right, with particular attention to AI-generated content, deepfakes and voice cloning. Third, it would establish a clear standard of consent what constitutes valid consent to commercial use of identity, how consent may be given and withdrawn and how it interacts with pre-existing licensing arrangements. Fourth, it would address the liability of AI developers, platforms and users in the chain of causation for AI-enabled violations of the right of publicity. Fifth, it would specify effective and proportionate remedies, including statutory damages that do not require proof of actual loss and equitable remedies that can be quickly obtained in the face of the rapid dissemination of infringing digital content.

The United States provides a useful comparative reference. Several American states California, New York and Tennessee, among others have enacted right of publicity statutes that address both the traditional dimensions of the right and, increasingly, the AI-specific challenges. The Tennessee ELVIS Act (Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act), enacted in 2024, is particularly instructive in its direct and explicit address of AI-generated voice and likeness simulations as a category of actionable violation of the right of publicity. Indian lawmakers would benefit from examining this legislation as a model.

Conclusion

The right of publicity in India stands at a critical juncture. The judicial decisions of the Delhi and Bombay High Courts have established the foundational principles that a celebrity’s identity carries commercial value, that its unauthorized appropriation is an actionable wrong and that the right extends to the totality of a person’s recognizable persona including their name, image, voice and distinctive characteristics. The constitutional grounding in the Puttaswamy decision and the practical protection afforded by passing off, trademark and copyright law provide a workable if imperfect framework for conventional cases of celebrity identity misappropriation.

The emergence of artificial intelligence as a tool for generating synthetic content that reproduces and fabricates celebrity identity with unprecedented fidelity has exposed the limits of this framework and created a pressing need for legislative intervention. The Anil Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan decisions signal that Indian courts are aware of this challenge and willing to extend existing doctrine to address it, but judicial adaptation has its limits. The structural questions raised by AI the allocation of liability across the chain of development, training and deployment; the interaction with data protection law; the treatment of AI-generated content in non-commercial contexts require legislative answers.

For celebrities, sports personalities and public figures in India, the right of publicity is an asset that must be actively managed. Registration of names and key marks as trademarks, careful management of image licensing, monitoring of digital platforms for unauthorized use and proactive engagement with legal counsel on AI-specific risks are all components of a sound publicity rights strategy. The law, as it stands, provides meaningful protection. The technology, as it is advancing, demands more.

References

1. The Trade Marks Act, 1999 – https://ipindia.gov.in/trade-mark.htm
2. The Copyright Act, 1957 – https://copyright.gov.in/Documents/CopyrightRules1957.pdf
3. The Information Technology Act, 2000 – https://legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/A2000-21.pdf
4. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 – https://legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/2023-08/2023_act_22.pdf
5. Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1
6. ICC Development (International) Ltd. v. Arvee Enterprises, (2003) 26 PTC 245 (Delhi High Court)
7. Titan Industries Ltd. v. Ramkumar Jewellers, (2012) 50 PTC 486 (Delhi High Court)
8. Shivaji Rao Gaikwad (Rajinikanth) v. Varsha Productions, (2015) (Bombay High Court)
9. Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India & Ors., CS(COMM) 652/2023 (Delhi High Court, 2023)
10. Amitabh Bachchan v. Rajat Nagi & Ors., CS(COMM) 819/2022 (Delhi High Court, 2022)
11. Sourav Ganguly v. Tata Tea Ltd. referenced in publicity rights scholarship on sporting identity
12. Tennessee ELVIS Act (Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act), 2024 – https://www.capitol.tn.gov
13. TRIPS Agreement – https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips.pdf
14. WIPO – Personality Rights and Image Rights – https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2016/01/article_0006.html

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