Delhi High Court Orders Takedown Of AI Deepfakes, Cloned Voice Ads Targeting Actor Ravi Kishan

During the hearing today, Justice Jyoti Singh drew a line between content amounting to unauthorised use of the actor's persona through artificial intelligence, which was ordered to be taken down immediately, and content alleged to be merely defamatory.

Ravi Kishan, the Member of Parliament from Gorakhpur, approached the Delhi High Court seeking an injunction against more than 30 defendants, including unidentified persons, over the unauthorised use of his image, voice, and likeness across social media platforms and websites using artificial intelligence.

During the hearing, counsel appearing for Google LLC sought to distinguish between two categories of content flagged against his client. One set, he argued, involved allegations of defamation rather than personality rights violation.

"What they are alleging is a defamation. With respect to this particular URL, what has been alleged is a defamation," counsel submitted, contending that a defamation claim and a personality rights claim were entirely different causes of action with "absolutely no overlap."

A separate complaint concerned a YouTube channel, where the actor pointed out that the channel had used his distinctive dialogue delivery and voice for an FM radio advertisement without authorisation.

The Court directed that this content too be taken down, noting that the uploader, already impleaded as a party, would be primarily responsible, with intermediary liability arising only if the uploader failed to comply within the timeline set by the Court.

Not all the flagged content involved obscene or vulgar material.

Counsel for the actor flagged a post on Facebook attributed to defendant no. 5 that showed only an image of the actor praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with no objectionable or AI-altered content.

"There's just an image of praising Modi. And I've never said this," counsel submitted, arguing that even non-vulgar content was actionable if falsely attributed to the plaintiff. When it was suggested that personality rights violations ought to be confined to vulgar or obscene misuse, the response was direct: "Is it only about vulgar? It has to be attributable."

The court directed takedown of the content violating the actor's personality rights.

The court directed compliance within one week from receipt of the order while keeping the question of the defamatory content, including the YouTube post uploaded by one of the defendants, outside the scope of the present takedown direction.

Ravi Kishan was represented by Senior Advocate N. Hariharan.