Delhi High Court Navigates Digital Era Personality Rights

The Delhi High Court is addressing a case involving cricketer Abhishek Sharma, who seeks protection against unauthorized use of his name and image online. The Court examined how personality rights intersect with defamation, especially amid rising AI-generated content. The matter presents challenges for content regulation.

The Delhi High Court recently explored the boundaries of personality rights while examining a suit filed by Indian cricketer Abhishek Sharma. Sharma seeks to safeguard his name, image, and likeness from alleged unauthorized use on digital platforms, including AI-generated content. Justice Jyoti Singh scrutinized web links cited by Sharma as potentially infringing his rights.

During the hearing, Meta's advocate Varun Pathak noted that two out of the eight disputed URLs were no longer accessible, referring to one as seemingly innocuous paparazzi-style content. However, Sharma's counsel asserted that the image of the cricketer was artificially manipulated, altering its context and thereby exploiting his persona without permission.

The case underscores the delicate interplay between defamation and personality rights in the digital realm. Justice Singh acknowledged the nuanced overlap between defamatory content and violations of personality rights. Meta warned that expanding claims to encompass all negative online content could pose operational challenges, as Sharma's case reportedly escalated from 25 to 4,000 URLs. Further consideration of the issues is scheduled for July 9.