Preity Zinta just fired some of the most potent shots at some of the most powerful technology companies in the world. The Bombay High Court gave the beloved Bollywood actor the nod of approval to file a case against global titans Google, Meta, and X Corp. The ruling was signed off on by Justice Abhay Ahuja just a few days ago. The essence of the case? Artificial intelligence. Deepfake videos. Morphed images. Fake chatbot personalities that are pretending to be the 49-year-old star. According to Zinta and her legal team, who are led by advocate Rohan Kadam, the tech giants are enabling users to generate and distribute content that does her real-life damage.
This is no idle annoyance. The actor’s lawyers submitted that since she is a resident and practitioner of law in Mumbai, her career and brand revolve around the city. But, as with everything that traverses the digital space, the spread of fake content isn’t bound by territorial limits. Anyone with a smart phone can interact with a chatbot mimicking her voice and persona or watch a video where her face is superimposed over someone else’s. Her team says it is a direct violation of her personality rights and moral rights under the Copyright Act, 1957.
Where Section 66D Comes Into Play
To understand the legal implications, one must take a look at the rule book. India has, what appears to be, quite clearly laid out provisions governing the unauthorized use of a digital persona in the form of Section 66D of the Information Technology Act. The provision says that “whoever cheats by personation by using a computer resource shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and also with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees.” In simpler terms, if an individual programmed an AI bot to speak like Preity Zinta or designed a voice assistant replicating her voice, and presented it as the real person, he/she would technically be committing cheating by personation and face criminal prosecution. The only problem with this law, at least for someone like Zinta, is that catching each individual internet troll creating and disseminating such content is often a needle-in-a-haystack proposition. And so, she’s taken her case straight to the platforms, Meta and Google, who are essentially the building blocks of this digital infrastructure where these clones reside.
The Problem With Chatbots and Voices
Deepfakes may be old news, but modern AI can now also emulate the voice and create personas too. With AI assistants being made to sound increasingly human-like by global tech giants, the likes of Meta have also released the new generative AI assistants. Some of their official chatbots were based on real celebrities, who, presumably, agreed to the usage of their persona in exchange for a fee. The current problem is when the technology reaches general users, who then start generating cloned versions of celebrity voices by feeding training data into these AI models, thereby using it to create custom AI-driven text and chatbots that text fans posing as their favourite celebrities. It was specifically brought to light by Zinta’s lawyers that some AI-generated personas impersonated the actor on chatbots, and that fan conversations with such bots were damaging her reputation and causing potential scams by posing as their idol, ultimately damaging the reputation and trust established between celebrities and their fan bases, a scenario that places the real celebrity at the risk of facing backlash.
Comparing the Tech Giants
The manner in which the different tech giants handle AI varies, presenting a challenge for the legal process:
| Tech Company | Primary Role in the AI Ecosystem | How the Fake Content Spreads |
|---|---|---|
| Meta | Operates the major social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. | Fake content is shared and amplified by users through stories, posts and the main feeds of their connections. |
| Oversees the world’s leading search engine and video-sharing site YouTube. | Manipulated videos and fabricated voice samples appear high in search results for terms related to the actor, or automatically play for users. | |
| X Corp | Facilitates public communication and real-time discussions. | Unauthorized personas and memes are spread through viral messages from anonymous or bot accounts. |
The challenges in removing infringing content are multiplied because what may be taken down from one platform might easily reappear on another. This is why the suit is being brought against a range of entities that together form the entire internet ecosystem. In fact, Zinta’s lawyers received special permission under Clause XII of the Letters Patent, 1919, to file the suit in Mumbai against these international companies headquartered in foreign countries, as they argued that Mumbai being the industry centre for film and TV production made it the natural jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter.
The Money and the Damage
The damages Zinta is seeking are yet to be quantified. But these cases are a massive financial strain not just on the victims but the perpetrators and platforms involved as well, given the complex and costly legal battle they often entail. Zinta’s claim is that these platforms are actively profiting from the distribution of illegal, demeaning, and defaming material, thereby damaging her livelihood, reputation, and commercial viability. Every endorsement, contract, and sponsorship that a star signs with a brand carries significant value, which would be diluted to zero if identical endorsements can be created on-demand by anyone through these platforms. This will also be the next frontier in the fight for protecting celebrities’ rights, after Bollywood stars like Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff previously secured orders from the Bombay High Court to curb unauthorized merchandise featuring their likeness, fake voice recordings, and even catchphrases.
What Happens Next
Meta and Google’s typical defence is that they are passive intermediaries who cannot monitor every piece of content that users upload. They usually invoke the safe harbour protections under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, which shields intermediaries from liability for user-generated content, provided they remove the content once alerted. However, the advent of generative AI throws this defence into a new light. These companies are no longer just passive hosts; they are actively developing, licensing, and distributing the AI tools and algorithms that enable these sophisticated deepfakes and clone personas. Zinta’s lawsuit has the potential to challenge the limitations of the safe harbor regime when the intermediary’s own technology is used for illegal activity. The question of whether a script mimicking the actor’s persona falls within the definition of “cheating by personation” under Section 66D, 1957 of the Information Technology Act will now likely reach the highest levels of Indian jurisprudence, reshaping the future of digital identity in the process.
