Shilpa Shetty moves Bombay High Court for protection of her personality rights

Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty has moved the Bombay High Court seeking protection of her personality rights from being illegally commercialised by several known and unknown platforms which are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) version of her voice, deepfake images etc and earning profits.

Shetty has highlighted that she is one of the most celebrated and internationally recognised personalities in the Indian entertainment industry for over three decades and is a global icon, considered as one of the leading actresses of the 1990s, and global ambassador for various brands.

It is further pointed out that she has earned immense fame and respect for her prolific acting career, philanthropic endeavours, and global representation of Indian culture and cinema.

“The present suit is being filed to protect and safeguard the personality/publicity rights which include the Plaintiff’s (Shetty’s) name, voice, image, likeness, signature, and all other attributes of the Plaintiff’s persona which are distinctive and exclusively associated with her, against the unauthorized/unlicensed use and/or commercial exploitation by third-parties which is likely to cause confusion/ deception and/or dilution amongst the public. The Defendants, without seeking and obtaining consent from the Plaintiff are exploiting her image, persona, likeness, voice for their own commercial gain,” the plea reads.

In her plea through advocate Sana Raees Khan, the actress has pointed out that the present proceedings concern the misuse of her personality/publicity rights.

Explaining the manner in which her personality rights are being breached, the plea points out that clips of Shetty’s movies are extracted for the purpose of creation, communication of Graphic Interchange Formats (GIFs) bearing her name, image, likeness and caricature, etc.

“The Defendants, by generating or reproducing videos and images containing the Plaintiff’s performance, name, image, likeness, or caricature in a manner that brings disrepute to the Plaintiff and makes her the subject of unsavoury humour, constituting violation of the moral rights vested in her performances,” the plea states.

Further it is alleged that the use of artificial intelligence such as machine learning algorithms as well as other elements of technology to clone Shetty’s voice, vocal style and technique, vocal arrangements and interpretations, mannerisms as well as morphed images of her face and create her images on posters, diaries, publishing books.

“Such merchandise and videos of the Plaintiff generate revenues for the Defendants, as they are uploaded and streamed on social networking websites including but not limited to Facebook, Instagram and YouTube which generates revenue based on the number of clicks or views to a particular image/ video,” the plea states.

The Defendants, by reproducing and circulating manipulated clips containing the Plaintiff’s likeness and performances in a manner that subjects her to unsavoury humour, ridicule and baseless rumors have violated her moral rights in her performances and caused serious harm to her reputation, it is alleged.

“The Plaintiff is entitled to restrain any third parties from unauthorised distortion, mutilation and/or any other modifications to her performance, voice, vocal style and vocal arrangements and interpretations, mannerisms, audio or video recordings thereof, that are prejudicial to her reputation,” the plea reads.