Actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu has won interim protection for her name, face and voice at the Bombay High Court. On 1 October Justice Madhav Jamdar ordered the removal of material that used her identity without consent, including AI deepfakes, and barred further publication of such content.
Her lawyers told the court the misuse ranged from morphed and deepfake images to cloned voices, obscene videos and AI chatbots built to objectify her. The judge found a prima facie breach of her personality, publicity and moral rights, tying them to free expression and the right to life and dignity under India's Constitution, and to a performer's moral rights in the Copyright Act.
The suit names 18 defendants, among them Meta, Google's YouTube, Amazon, AI platforms, media outlets and unidentified John Doe parties. India's IT ministry and Department of Telecommunications were joined so that orders can be enforced through them.
The relief is ad-interim: the takedown applies now, while the full suit against the platforms, AI developers and outlets goes on. Advocate Rashmin Khandekar argued the case for her, with a team instructed by Hirani & Associates.
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