Bombay HC Restrains AI Platforms From Unauthorised Cloning Of Arijit Singh’s Voice

The Bombay High Court (HC) has restrained a clutch of platforms and individuals from offering AI tools that allow users to convert their voice into Bollywood singer Arijit Singh’s voice.

In an ex-parte order dated July 26, Justice RI Chagla observed that the platforms were emboldening internet users to create counterfeit sound recordings and videos that misuse the Singh’s character and identity.

The directions came in response to a petition filed by the singer seeking protection of his personality rights. Granting the injunction till September 3, the HC has posted the matter for next hearing on September 2.

The plea named platforms such as Codible Ventures LLP, 100x Engineers, Hugging Face Inc., Audimee Me, Go Green Tale, Godehope and Kreate as respondents.

“In my view, creation of new audio or video content/songs/videos in the Plaintiff’s AI name/voice, photograph, image, likeness and persona without his consent and commercially using the same could potentially jeopardise the Plaintiff’s career/livelihood,” noted the HC.

Arguing for the singer, counsel Hiren Kamod and Vaibhav Keni said that the platforms were offering tools to their customers to unauthorisedly create AI-generated voice models of celebrities and popular fictional characters.

“Permitting the defendants (AI platforms) to continue exploiting/violating the Plaintiff’s (Singh) personality/publicity rights, without Plaintiff’s consent also jeopardises the Plaintiff’s career as a performer/singer and his status of a celebrity… The act of creating and disseminating videos… on how to use unauthorised AI models to replicate a celebrity’s voice such as Plaintiff without his consent cannot be shielded under the right of freedom of speech and expression,” argued Singh’s lawyers.

The development comes at a time when generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has paved the way for easy creation of deepfakes. Unlike previously, the emerging technology allows users to simply input their audio file onto a platform and generate the output in the voice of a popular celebrity. 

However, Arijit Singh is not the first to seek relief in such a matter. Earlier this year, an owner of a Rishikesh-based firm was arrested for allegedly creating several deep fake videos on social media platforms that showed actor Amitabh Bachchan promoting products related to sexual health.

In May, Delhi HC passed an injunction against the unauthorised use of actor Jackie Shroff’s voice, and other personal attributes and prohibited the exploitation of Shroff’s “persona” through deepfakes without his explicit consent.

In September last year, Delhi HC also restrained social media and ecommerce platforms from misusing voice and other attributes of actor Anil Kapoor and barred them from creating AI-generated videos from infringing on the publicity rights of Kapoor.

Last month, the Bombay HC also directed social media platforms to take down deepfakes that featured NSE MD and CEO Ashishkumar Chauhan offering stock recommendations