Actor Vivek Oberoi moves Delhi HC against misuse of name, image for AI, deep-fake content

Actor and entrepreneur Vivek Oberoi on Thursday moved the Delhi High Court seeking protection against the misuse of his name, image and other attributes of his persona by several entities, especially for morphed and AI-generated content.

“We will pass the order,” said Justice Tushar Rao Gedela.

Oberoi, in his lawsuit, said several entities were allegedly exploiting his personality rights without authorisation, which was causing incalculable loss to his goodwill and reputation.

His lawsuit said several entities were impersonating him on social media platforms, such as Instagram, by creating fake accounts using his name and images, and using artificial intelligence (AI) to create “deep fake” and morphed content having “distasteful imagery”.

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“These videos often portray the plaintiff in a false setting as well as in an inappropriate scenario with other celebrities of the film industry. Such scenarios often seek to convey obvious distasteful insinuations that target plaintiffs family life as well. Such distasteful videos are bound to mislead the public into thinking that what is depicted in that video is in fact true.

“These videos are vulgar and sexually explicit in nature. What is particularly egregious is the fact that the defendants are exploiting the plaintiff’s image and creating such YouTube shorts/videos to gain traction for their videos,” it stated.

The lawsuit emphasised that in addition to his acting career, Oberoi is also a successful entrepreneur with business interests in India and Dubai.

Oberoi has “built independent commercial credibility beyond the film industry and has acquired substantial goodwill as a businessman”, and no one is entitled to misappropriate or imitate any facet of his personality, including his name, signature, voice or image, for commercial purposes without his consent.

The lawsuit also stated that certain entities were selling unauthorised merchandise, like posters, T-shirts and postcards, bearing his name and image on various e-commerce platforms.

The lawsuit prayed for a direction to restrain the offending entities from violating his personality/publicity rights.

Several public figures, like actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, her husband Abhishek Bachchan, Salman Khan, ‘Art of Living’ founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary and podcaster Raj Shamani had earlier approached the high court seeking protection of their personality and publicity rights. The court granted them interim relief.