Bombay High Court orders takedown of AI deepfakes, derogatory content against Samantha Ruth Prabhu

The Bombay High Court today ordered the takedown of content found misusing the name, image and voice of actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu [Samantha Ruth Prabhu v. John Doe & Ors].

Justice Madhav Jamdar passed the interim order on a plea filed by Prabhu seeking the protection of her personality rights.

The Court has restrained the publication of objectionable content that involve the unauthorised use of the name, image, and voice of the actress, including deepfakes created through the use of artificial intelligence.

The Court passed the order after noting that the content flagged by Prabhu in her personality rights suit - including morphed content and deepfakes - demonstrated a prima facie violation of the actor's personality, publicity, and moral rights.

“The plaintiff's (Samantha Prabhu's) personality rights and publicity rights are protected by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India, that is, the right to freedom of speech and expression, as also by Article 21 of the Constitution of India, that is, the right to life and personal liberty, including the right to privacy and the right to human dignity, and her moral rights as a performer are separately protected under Section 38B of the Copyright Act. Thus, all these valuable rights of the plaintiff are violated and adversely affected by the impugned actions of the defendants," the Court observed.

The suit targets 18 defendants, ranging from global tech giants and AI developers to media organisations and government regulatory bodies. 

Named respondents include Meta Platforms (Facebook, Instagram), Google LLC (YouTube), Amazon, AI platforms and digital media outlets, apart from unidentified "John Doe / Ashok Kumar" parties.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) have also been made parties to the suit, so that directions can be issued to them to enforce the Court's directions in the matter.

Advocate Rashmin Khandekar represented Prabhu before the Court today and highlighted widespread violations of her rights, through morphed and deepfake photographs, AI voice generation, obscene videos, and interactive AI chatbots that objectified the actress.

After considering these submissions, the Court has granted Prabhu ad-interim relief by ordering the removal of such content.

Advocates Anand Mohan, Lavin Hirani, Vikramaditya Chavan and Jaanvi Chopra, instructed by Hirani & Associates also appeared for Prabhu.