Abhishek Sharma’s AI case: Delhi HC marks ‘fine line’ between personality rights and defamation

Abhishek Sharma (ANI Photo) NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday examined the evolving scope of personality rights while hearing a suit filed by Indian cricketer Abhishek Sharma seeking protection against alleged unauthorized use of his name, image and likeness across online platforms, including by artificial intelligence-generated content.The matter came before Justice Jyoti Singh, who scrutinized several web links that Sharma said were allegedly infringing on his personality rights. During the hearing, the Court also made important observations about the increasingly complex relationship between personality rights and defamation in the digital age.

Delhi HC marks overlap between personality rights and defamation

In considering the competing submissions, Justice Singh noted that disputes over online content often blur the distinction between defamation and personality rights.“We also find it every day where there’s a fine line between defamation and personality rights. It’s in motion. There’s a bit of an overlap. A defamation matter can have a personality rights element,” Justice Singh noted.The court’s comments came as it considered whether the online content at issue involved only objectionable speech or constituted an unauthorized misuse of Sharma’s identity through artificial intelligence.

The controversy revolves around an AI-edited image

Advocate Varun Pathak, appearing for Met, informed the court that of the eight URLs currently under consideration, two are no longer available. Referring to one of the remaining links, Pathak said it appeared to be a “paparazzi” post and, in his view, did not constitute a violation of personality rights.However, Sharma’s counsel strongly disagreed with this characterization.Advocate Thakur, who appeared for the cricketer, argued that the case was not about a simple paparazzi photo. Instead, he said that the original image of Sharma with his manager was allegedly manipulated with AI by changing its appearance and context, resulting in a misleading AI-generated image.According to the plaintiff, the digitally altered image falsely conveyed a different impression and amounted to an unauthorized use of Sharma’s personality and identity.In response to the court’s comments, Pathak argued that false or objectionable statements about an individual would typically fall within the realm of defamation or privacy rather than personality rights.He further stated that extending the claims of privacy rights to include all adverse online content would cause serious practical difficulties for intermediaries.According to Met, Sharma initially went to court with around 25 URLs, but the number of allegedly infringing links later increased to nearly 4,000.Pathak argued that adopting such an expansive interpretation would in effect require intermediaries to “clean the Internet” of content critical of the plaintiff, regardless of whether a personality rights violation actually occurred.

Matter forwarded for further consideration

After hearing both sides, the Delhi High Court adjourned further hearing of the matter to July 9, saying that certain matters relating to the plea required attention.The suit is among a growing number of personality protection cases before the Delhi High Court involving celebrities seeking protection from the unauthorized commercial use or manipulation of their names, photographs, likenesses and AI-driven identities.With the rapid advent of artificial intelligence tools capable of generating lifelike images and videos, courts are increasingly being asked to investigate claims related to deepfake, digitally altered content and the unauthorized use of public figures.