Akshay Kumar moves to court to protect his personality rights

Akshay Kumar has approached the Bombay High Court, seeking legal protection over his personality rights amid growing concerns about the misuse of celebrity likeness through artificial intelligence (AI).

The actor has reportedly filed a lawsuit against parties allegedly infringing upon his identity by using AI-generated imitations of his persona. Further details on the case are awaited.In the past few months, several prominent names from the film industry — including Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan, Karan Johar, Rishab Shetty, and Akkineni Nagarjuna — have also taken similar legal steps to safeguard their personality rights.Earlier this month, the Bombay High Court extended protection to veteran playback singer Asha Bhosle, prohibiting unauthorised use of her name, photographs, or any personal attributes — even via AI-generated tools. The court observed that allowing AI platforms to mimic a celebrity’s voice without permission amounts to a violation of their identity.Explaining the legal premise behind such actions, the Delhi High Court had previously stated, “Personality Rights of individuals, simply put, entail the right to control and protect the exploitation of one’s image, name, likeness or other attributes of the individuals’ personality, in addition to the commercial gains that can be derived from the same.

Personality Rights can be located in the individuals’ autonomy to permit or deny the exploitation of the likeness of other attributes of their personality.

”In essence, personality rights grant individuals control over how their identity — including their name, face, image, voice, or signature — is used publicly or commercially. These rights are typically divided into two main categories: the right of publicity, which prevents unauthorised commercial use (like featuring a celebrity in an advertisement without consent), and the right to privacy, which shields individuals from personal intrusions such as deepfakes, doctored endorsements, or manipulated intimate visuals.