Delhi High Court protects Yuvraj Singh’s personality rights, restrains unauthorised AI deepfakes and merchandise

The Delhi High Court has restrained the unauthorised use of Yuvraj Singh's personality attributes, including AI-generated deepfakes and merchandise. The court directed online platforms to remove offending content, observing that such misuse damages the former India cricketer's reputation and goodwill

New Delhi:The Delhi High Court has protected the personality rights of cricketer Yuvraj Singh and restrained the unauthorised use of his name, image, etc, by third parties for commercial or personal gain, including the sale of merchandise and creation of AI-generated or deepfake content.

Justice Jyoti Singh, in an interim order passed on the sportsman’s lawsuit, said Yuvraj is one of the most decorated, recognised and globally renowned cricketers, who represented the country across all formats of the sport for 17 years, and those violating his personality and privacy rights needed to be “dealt with a heavy hand”.

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In the order passed on July 29, Justice Singh protected the exploitation or misappropriation of the name ‘Yuvraj Singh’ as well as ‘Yuvi’, along with the image, voice, likeness, and any other personality attributes of the cricketer.

Yuvraj contended that besides the unauthorised sale of merchandise bearing his personality attributes, several social media accounts were publishing and disseminating AI-generated images and videos, purportedly showing him in fabricated and fictional scenarios which were damaging his reputation and goodwill.

The objectionable content included religiously insensitive posts, videos showing aggressive and violent behaviour towards another cricketers, and posts with vulgar and abusive language, his counsel told the court.

Directing Meta Platforms and other online platforms to remove the offending content, the court observed, “There can be no dispute that plaintiff’s stature inherently grants him proprietary rights over his personality and associated attributes and gives him the exclusive rights to use the personality attributes for commercial purposes and consequently, the right to protect various attributes of his persona from unauthorized use or exploitation by third-parties.”

“The contents of the impugned AI-generated posts and deep fake videos are tarnishing the immense goodwill and reputation of the plaintiff, garnered over the years with hard work and stellar performances in the field of cricket as well as his contribution to social welfare and lowering his image and standing in the eyes of the public,” the court concluded.

Several public figures, like actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and Salman Khan, Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary, podcaster Raj Shamani, Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan and cricketer Abhishek Sharma have previously approached the high court seeking protection of their personality and publicity rights.

The high court had granted them interim relief.