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The Delhi High Court has observed that “personality rights” do not constitute a single cause of action, and that mere use of identity is not unlawful.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav made the observations while granting interim protection to actor Kriti Sanon against the alleged misuse of her name, image, likeness and voice through AI-generated deepfakes, impersonation and synthetic voice models.

The Court observed that the right of publicity protects the commercial value of an individual's identity and can be licensed, whereas privacy, dignity and reputation are personal interests which cannot be assigned.

“The rights are available to every individual. Fame bears on whether an identity has commercial value and on the loss caused by its misuse; it is not a condition of the right. Equally, the mere use of a person's identity is not, by itself, unlawful,” the Court observed.

The Court further held that a plaintiff seeking protection of personality rights must specify, defendant-wise and content-wise, the claims being made and the material supporting them. It said that all claims cannot be placed under one umbrella to seek a blanket injunction.

The Court noted that the legal questions surrounding personality rights would be decided on their own merits after the contesting defendants are heard. It clarified that the present order was only an ad-interim arrangement to preserve the rights of the parties.

“Personality rights” is not a single cause of action. It is a description of several distinct claims that may arise when a person‟s identity is used without consent. The right of publicity, passing off, the right of privacy, defamation, and, where their conditions are met, rights under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 and the Copyright Act, 1957, including performers‟ rights,” the Court said.

It added that each claim carries its own elements, defences and remedy and that placing them all under one label cannot lower the threshold that applies to any one of them.

“….whether the high threshold for pre-trial restraint of defamatory speech, or the free speech limits on the right of publicity,” it said.

Sanon approached the High Court alleging that various persons and entities were misusing her name, image, likeness and voice.

The alleged misuse included offering bookings for her appearances, impersonating her through social media accounts, circulating AI-generated and morphed images, selling merchandise, creating AI chatbots and synthetic voice models presented as the actor, and hosting pornographic deepfakes.

The Court clarified that the injunction would not restrain news, reviews, criticism, commentary, satire, parody, caricature or fan expression which does not fall within the specified directions.

For context, a coordinate bench is dealing with a larger question concerning personality right. in the suits filed by actors Janhvi Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi and Aradhya Bachchan seeking protection of their personality rights.

Advocates Gautam Bhatia and Rohan Alva have been appointed as amici in the matters.

Bhatia, in his submissions, have saved that a standalone claim for “personality rights” accompanied by a broad John Doe (unknown individuals) injunction is unknown to Indian law.

Bhatia had submitted that “personality rights” do not constitute a single cause of action giving rise to a uniform remedy such as a dynamic injunction and that the expression encompasses a bundle of distinct legal interests which may be protected through different causes of action and remedies.

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