Why Spiritual Leaders such as Sadhguru And Ravi Shankar Seek Personality Rights Protection?

A Fresh Legal Protection over Spiritual Leaders.

The recent request of prominent spiritual leaders to the courts to obtain a potent legal remedy called the personality rights has included Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. This action, commonly attributed to movie stars and sport celebs, brings a new and grave threat to the open side of the electronic era on the part of the publicity figure. Through the suits, these leaders are requesting the court to have them have a monopoly over their name, image, voice, likeness, and any other feature that identifies them exclusively.

It is a defensive action, rather than a vanity step in this legal move. Both Sadhguru, the founder of Isha Foundation and Ravi Shankar, the founder of Art of living have a following that is spread across the globe. Their characters are indistinguishable with their religious lessons and charity activities. The suits allege that unauthorized use of their identities is the order of the day leading to confusion to their followers and permanent damage to their reputation.

The Delhi High court has been responsive to these appeals by acknowledging the special position of these leaders. As an example, interim injunctions have been awarded in situations involving both parties. Such court orders automatically bar any unknown individual, commonly known as John Doe defendants, to utilise the personality characteristics of the leaders in any way without their direct request, particularly on online sites.

This pattern is an important development in the Indian law, which the judicial system struggles to understand how to uphold the identity of a person in the age of social media and artificial intelligence. The judicial system is confirming that the name and likeness of a person is not the property of people. They are rather precious resources that should not be abused, regardless of whether such an individual is an actor, an athlete, or a spiritual leader who is revered worldwide.

The social media abuse is rampant.

These lawsuits are mainly fueled by the fact that their identities are commercially exploited on a large-scale and unlicensed basis. The name and the images of Sadhguru and Ravi Shankar are often misused by rogue websites, social media pages, and the unknown people to defraud the populace. This abuse comes in numerous forms but the most popular is the fake advertisement of products and services.

Indicatively, the legal team of Sadhguru has provided evidence of how his image was being used to promote books, merchandise, and even a fabricated health cure of which he never gave approval. On the same note, in the petition that Ravi Shankar filed, he pointed at the fact that his image was being exploited to market solutions to severe illnesses such as diabetes and chronic pain. These counterfeit endorsements are used to deceive the masses that the spiritual leaders have endorsed or even invented these products.

The fact is that this deception is especially effective due to the great trust that the followers have toward these leaders. An individual that has believed in Sadhguru in his approach to well being may be fooled to purchase a product that does not carry his image. Not only is this illegitimate association playing with the trust of the people but also ruining the credibility of the leader when they end up failing to meet their overblown promises with the products.

These gurus headed foundations are compelled to use a lot of resources to counter this flow of misinformation. The personality rights litigation is an endeavor to develop a stronger and an effective weapon. It lets them bypass the cumbersome mechanism of reporting on a post-by-post basis and instead provides them a blanket court order to remove any material that violates their persona. The AI Stakeholder Free Ride of Deepfakes.

Although it is a significant issue, unauthorized endorsements, the emergence of artificial intelligence has brought about a more malevolent creature: deepfakes. Malicious actors are able to make use of this technology to produce highly realistic, fake videos and audio clips. It is possible that these deepfakes can perfectly mimic the voices, facial expression, and mannerism of the leaders in the digital world.

This was a new danger that was specifically pointed out by the lawsuits filed, especially by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. His petition outlined that deep fake videos were being shared which depicted him talking and advertising Ayurvedic medicine which were dubious. These videos purported that he had learned these so-called cures in the process of meditation, and gave them credibility by pretending that it was his own cloned voice.

This kind of online identity theft is extremely harming. It is not just a mere photo; it is a totally fabricated story that seems to be presented by the leader himself. In the case of spiritual leaders whose teachings are their main source of employment, a deep fake video of the leader promoting a fake investment or a bogus medical treatment would have disastrous and instantaneous consequences on the reputation.

The leaders are requesting the court to specifically allow the protection of their voice and their likeness against cloning by AI by affirming personality rights. This threat has been recognized by Delhi High Court in its orders. The injunctions issued tend to prohibit the abuse of their persona in any format or medium, namely, the use of AI-generated work, voice-cloned audio, or deepfake video.

 Preservation of a Multinational Reputation and Credibility.

Finally, this court case is one concerning the integrity of a spiritual mission and respecting the trust in the community. Sadhguru and Ravi Shankar are not merely a person; they are the personalities of the international foundations. The “Isha Foundation” and the “Art of Living” are gigantic non-profit making organisations engaged in all topics like yoga and meditation to large scale environmental and humanitarian endeavours.

The court in its findings has recognized this special status. It observed that leaders such as Sadhguru are trusted spiritual guides and any distortion of their approvals will cause an irreparable harm to his own reputation and to the general faith of the people. The main issue is the fact that people are misled with such false and incorrect associations.

This legal safeguard is also required in order to differentiate between the legitimate teachings and the fraudulent information. As a person can make a video about Sadhguru or organise a seminar about Ravi Shankar, the masses are deprived of the opportunity to determine the true origin. This water downs the fundamental message of the entities and may bring followers into malpractices or fraud.