Beyond the Celebrity, The Feminist Fight for Personality Rights in the Digital Age

Beyond the Celebrity, The Feminist Fight for Personality Rights in the Digital Age

In September 2025, one of India’s most recognizable faces, actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, approached the Delhi High Court. Her plea was not for a film role or a contractual dispute, but for something far more fundamental: the right to own herself. She sought protection against a pervasive digital violation: the unauthorized use of her name, likeness, image, and voice by countless websites, e-commerce platforms, and YouTube channels. The violations were a catalogue of modern digital exploitation: the sale of cheap, unauthorized merchandise; AI-powered chatbots impersonating her; and perhaps most insidiously, the circulation of AI-generated deepfakes that distorted her persona for various ends. While the court granted her interim relief, the case transcends the world of celebrity gossip. It strikes at the heart of a critical, and deeply feminist, question for the 21st century: In an era of boundless digital replication, who has the right to control and profit from an individual’s identity, and whose bodies are culturally deemed available for public appropriation?

The Gendered Nature of Digital Exploitation

To view Aishwarya Rai’s case as merely a “celebrity rights issue” is to miss its profound gendered dimension. The unauthorized exploitation of a woman’s image is rarely gender-neutral. Female celebrities, in particular, face a disproportionate and specific form of indignity where their likeness is routinely commodified, distorted, and sexualized without their consent. They are not just having their endorsement value stolen; they are having their very selves hijacked.

The list of victims is long and telling. In just the last two years, leading actresses like Alia Bhatt, Rashmika Mandanna, and Kajol have been targets of malicious deepfake videos. These are not random acts but part of a systematic pattern of violation. This pattern is underpinned by a deep-seated cultural entitlement. Because women, especially actresses, are visible in the public sphere, a dangerous assumption takes hold: that the public is entitled to their images for further use. This entitlement manifests in indecent memes, doctored photographs, merchandise, and now, with terrifying ease, hyper-realistic deepfakes. It reflects a patriarchal logic that treats women’s bodies not as their own sovereign territory, but as public property—objects to be consumed, commented upon, and manipulated, stripped of autonomy and dignity.

The Dual Pillars of Personality Rights: Publicity and Privacy

Indian jurisprudence has been gradually evolving to meet this challenge, primarily through landmark court judgments. Cases like ICC Development v. Arvee Enterprises, Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India, and now Aishwarya Rai Bachchan v. Aishwaryaworld have clarified that the right to personality is not a single right but a bundle of rights with two distinct yet overlapping dimensions:

1. The Right of Publicity (Commercial): This is an economic right. It protects an individual’s name, likeness, image, and other identifiable aspects from unauthorized commercial exploitation. It prevents a third party from falsely implying that a celebrity has endorsed their product, thereby capitalizing on the celebrity’s fame and goodwill. Courts often treat this under the law of “passing off,” preventing consumer confusion and protecting the commercial value of a person’s identity.

2. The Right to Privacy (Dignitary): This is a fundamental right, grounded in Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. The Supreme Court has interpreted this to include the right to privacy and dignity. This dimension protects an individual’s persona from violation, humiliation, or misuse, even if no commercial gain is involved. It is about the right to be left alone and to control how one’s identity is presented to the world.

In Rai’s case, the harm is twofold. The unauthorized advertisements and online endorsements deprive her of legitimate income, violating her right of publicity. More disturbingly, the unauthorized use of her persona, especially in sexually suggestive deepfakes or contexts she does not approve of, constitutes a grave assault on her dignity, violating her right to privacy. The courts, by recognizing this, are moving to challenge the culture of entitlement with a culture of rights.

The Core Principle: Autonomy Over Entitlement

The thread that connects both the commercial and dignitary aspects of personality rights is the principle of autonomy. When Aishwarya Rai Bachchan consents to appear in a L’Oréal commercial or a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film, she is making a conscious choice. She is exercising her agency to shape her public identity and to decide what parts of herself to put into the public sphere for commercial or artistic purposes. This is an active process of curation and consent.

When a third party—a random website, a tech developer, a merchandise manufacturer—takes her image and uses it without permission, they are committing a act of erasure. They are erasing her agency. They are making the choice for her, stripping her of the autonomy to decide how she is represented. This is why the legal response must be so firm. The law must affirm, unequivocally, that the anchor of personality rights is individual autonomy, not public entitlement.

The Free Speech Counterargument and the Judicial Balance

Critics of strong personality rights often raise the concern that they could curtail freedom of speech and expression. This is a valid consideration in a vibrant democracy. However, Indian courts have wisely and clearly drawn a line between protected speech and unlawful appropriation.

Free speech robustly protects information, news reporting, political satire, parody, and criticism of public figures. These are essential components of public discourse. What it does not protect is the outright theft of identity for commercial gain or harassment. The Delhi High Court in the Anil Kapoor judgment was explicit: while parody and criticism enrich public discourse, the unauthorized use of a celebrity’s name, voice, dialogues, or images for purely commercial purposes cannot be permitted under the guise of free speech.

The Aishwarya Rai case takes this reasoning a critical step further into the age of Artificial Intelligence. New technologies like generative AI and deepfakes make identity theft easier, more convincing, and infinitely more damaging. The law must evolve just as rapidly to prevent these tools from becoming weapons of mass harassment and exploitation.

The Urgent Need for a Legislative Framework

India’s current approach to personality rights is fragmented and inadequate. It relies on a patchwork of other laws:

• Trademark Law: For registered names or logos.

• Copyright Law: For specific artistic works.

• The Law of Passing Off: For commercial misrepresentation.

• Constitutional Interpretation: For privacy and dignity under Article 21.

This piecemeal approach creates uncertainty and fails to address the unique challenges of the digital era. The Rai case is a clarion call for a comprehensive, codified legislative framework. Such a law must:

1. Provide a Clear Definition: It should explicitly define personality rights to include name, likeness, voice, signature, and crucially, digital manifestations like deepfakes and AI-generated impersonations.

2. Safeguard Free Speech: It must codify clear exceptions for news, satire, parody, criticism, and academic use, ensuring that free expression is not chilled.

3. Protect the Non-Famous: The law must recognize that personality rights are not the sole privilege of celebrities. Ordinary citizens, particularly women, are increasingly targeted through deepfake pornography, revenge porn, and other forms of cyber-harassment. A strong personality rights law would offer them a civil remedy.

4. Strengthen Criminal Law: The Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act need to be amended to clearly recognize and severely punish the malicious creation and distribution of deepfakes and digital impersonations, treating them as serious cybercrimes and forms of cyber sexual harassment.

Conclusion: A Reclamation of Self

Ultimately, the petition filed by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is about far more than protecting endorsement contracts. It is a foundational fight to reclaim dignity and autonomy in a digital age that increasingly threatens to strip them both away. Technology has given misogyny a new and powerful toolkit, but the law must provide the shield. For women, who bear the brunt of this digital entitlement, strong and clear personality rights are more than a legal concept; they are a vital tool for resistance. They are a means to reassert the most basic of truths: that their bodies, their voices, and their identities are their own, and no one else’s.

Q&A: Understanding Personality Rights in India

Q1: What are personality rights and how are they different from other rights?
A: Personality rights are a bundle of rights that protect an individual’s identity from unauthorized use. They are distinct from other intellectual property rights:

• vs. Copyright: Copyright protects original artistic works (a song, a painting, a film). Personality rights protect the attributes of a person’s identity itself (their face, voice, name) that are used in those works or elsewhere.

• vs. Trademark: A trademark protects a brand’s logo, name, or slogan used in commerce. Personality rights protect the commercial value and dignity of a human being’s identity, preventing others from using it to suggest a false endorsement.

• vs. Privacy: Privacy is a broader fundamental right to be left alone. Personality rights often encompass privacy (the right to dignity) but also include a specific economic component (the right of publicity) that privacy law alone does not cover.

Q2: Why is the violation of these rights considered a feminist issue?
A: The violation is deeply gendered because women, especially celebrities, are disproportionately targeted. Their images are not just stolen for commercial gain but are routinely sexualized, distorted via deepfakes, and used in contexts that violate their dignity. This reflects a patriarchal sense of entitlement that treats women’s bodies as public property, available for consumption and manipulation without their consent. The fight for personality rights is thus a fight for women’s bodily autonomy and agency in the digital sphere.

Q3: How has Indian law addressed personality rights so far?
A: India lacks a dedicated statute for personality rights. Instead, protection has been developed through judicial precedent. Courts have used a combination of:

• The Law of Passing Off: To prevent unauthorized commercial use that causes consumer confusion.

• Article 21 of the Constitution: To uphold the right to privacy and dignity against non-consensual use of one’s image.
  Cases like Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India and now Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s case have been instrumental in building this judicial framework, recognizing both the commercial and dignitary aspects of the right.

Q4: What is the balance between personality rights and freedom of speech?
A: Indian courts have struck a balance by distinguishing between protected speech and unlawful appropriation. Protected speech includes news reporting, satire, parody, and criticism—activities that are essential for public discourse and are allowed even if they use a person’s image. Unlawful appropriation includes the unauthorized sale of merchandise, creating impersonating chatbots, making deepfakes, and using a likeness for direct commercial endorsement without permission. The latter is not considered a valid exercise of free speech.

Q5: Why is there a need for a new law instead of relying on court judgments?
A: Relying solely on court judgments creates a fragmented and uncertain legal landscape. A dedicated law is urgently needed to:

• Provide Clarity: Offer a clear, standardized definition of what constitutes personality rights and what is prohibited.

• Keep Pace with Technology: Explicitly cover modern digital violations like AI deepfakes and digital impersonations that existing laws were not designed for.

• Protect Ordinary Citizens: Make it clear that these rights are not just for celebrities but for everyone, especially women vulnerable to deepfake harassment.

• Codify Exceptions: Clearly outline exceptions for free speech (parody, news, etc.) to prevent legal overreach and ensure democratic expression is not stifled.