The Bombay High Court recently said the unauthorised use of AI to generate a replication of the singing and voice style of a well-known Indian artist was a violation of her personality rights. While deciding an interim application in the case of Asha Bhosle v Mayank Inc (2025), the high court said such AI tools were “technological exploitation” that infringed on the celebrity’s right to protect themselves, their likeness and voice, and enabled the undermining of their ability to prevent commercial and deceptive uses of their identity.
Bhosle is a veteran singer who has been active for more than 70 years, and has multiple national and international accolades to her name.
The matter involved an AI generation tool and its owner company, who were defendant numbers 1 and 2. The AI tool was being used by various unnamed users to generate content, which was then used by the generators for monetisation. Content – such as caricatures, songs through voice and singing style replication, photos and so on – was being produced and later uploaded on different platforms from where users were making money from such unauthorised works.
Popular e-commerce platforms Amazon and Flipkart were defendant numbers 3 and 4. The companies were displaying and enabling the sale of some of the unauthorised content. This included posters, wallpapers, portraits and animated caricatures created through Bhosle’s images, photographs and likeness. These actions were considered unauthorised commercial exploitation of Asha Bhosle’s publicity and personality rights.
Sketch artist Harry Tiwari was defendant number 5 in this case, who was selling T-shirts and hoodies printed with the singer’s photos on his website.
The last defendant was Google. Multiple unnamed users of the AI tool were using it to create videos and audios of various songs being “performed” in the same manner as the singer and uploading the content on YouTube for views and profits. YouTube is Google’s video-sharing platform where users can upload videos and can even make money from them.
To support the claim as well as protect the singer’s personality rights and celebrity, the high court referred to the recent order in Aishwarya Rai Bhachchan v Asiwaryaworld.com and Ors (2025), and Arijit Singh v Codible Ventures and Ors (2024).
In its submissions, Google said it would take down the videos in question as directed.
While considering the merits of the case, the court observed that “personality/publicity rights are vested in celebrities, and the unauthorised use of the name or other persona attributes of celebrities would amount to violation of their valuable personality rights and right to publicity”. The court then granted ad interim relief to Bhosle and restrained the defendants from continuing the exploitation of the singer’s personality rights, and ordered the removal of the content and sale promotions already online.
Amazon, Flipkart and Google were also asked to hand over details of the uploader of such violative content to the plaintiff.
The main case is still ongoing and the next hearing is on 17 November 2025.
