New Delhi, March 20 The Delhi High Court on Friday listed for hearing on March 23 a lawsuit filed by Gautam Gambhir, the head coach of the Indian cricket team, to prevent the misuse and exploitation of his image, voice, and other personality attributes for creating deepfake content and for commercial gain.
Gambhir's counsel, before Justice Jyoti Singh, argued that besides infringing on his personality rights, the case also concerns his dignity.
Advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai asserted that the offending content had "material consequences" for Gambhir, as it included fabricated videos purportedly showing him resigning as head coach after a poor match performance or assaulting a fellow player.
"Some things have material consequences. Imagine the head coach of the Indian team, and his words being put in his mouth through deepfakes, saying he is resigning from the team. This has created a lot of issues," Dehadrai said.
"His commercial value is proven. He has endorsements from major brands," the lawyer added.
Dehadrai further informed the court that the user who published the resignation video, which has 29 lakh views, took it down and apologized after the lawsuit was filed.
Asserting that Gambhir has 23 years of national service as a player and is now a coach, Dehadrai sought an interim order from the court to restrain several entities, including unnamed defendants, from misusing his personality rights.
The court deferred the hearing in the matter after noticing certain discrepancies in the lawsuit and granted time to the counsel to correct the same.
In the lawsuit, Gambhir has sought directions to protect his personality and publicity rights from a coordinated campaign of digital impersonation, AI-generated deepfakes, and unauthorized commercial exploitation across social media platforms.
The plea said that several social media accounts were using artificial intelligence, face-swapping, and voice-cloning technologies to create realistic videos falsely depicting Gambhir.
The lawsuit also objected to the unauthorized sale of merchandise bearing his name and likeness on e-commerce platforms.