Source: King Stubb & Kasiva

King Stubb & Kasiva analyzes a significant recent order by the Bombay High Court in the case of Asha Bhosle v. Mayk Inc. & Ors. (2025), which addresses the growing challenge of AI-generated deepfakes and voice cloning. The plaintiff, legendary singer Asha Bhosle, alleged that the defendant's AI platform allowed users to create songs in her voice without consent, which were then monetized on various platforms. The Court's ad-interim order recognized "voice" as an integral part of personality rights, ruling that its unauthorized exploitation constitutes a violation of privacy and amounts to the tort of passing off, even without explicit misrepresentation.

The article highlights the Court's finding that AI voice cloning is a "brazen appropriation" of a celebrity's labor and reputation. The ruling establishes that safe harbor protections for intermediaries (under Section 79 of the IT Act) are not absolute; once notified of infringing content, platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, and Google have an affirmative duty to remove the content and prevent re-uploads. The decision is pivotal as it extends jurisdiction to foreign platforms if the harm is suffered domestically and targets Indian users.

This case sets a precedent for the regulation of synthetic media in India, aligning with global legal trends that protect distinctive personal attributes from commercial exploitation by AI. The authors note that the order implicitly classifies deepfakes as misleading representations that violate publicity rights, paving the way for future statutory frameworks. It serves as a warning to AI developers and intermediaries that they must respect proprietary personality rights and cannot hide behind claims of innovation to bypass consent.