1. INTRODUCTION

Artificial intelligence stopped being just a creative tool quite some time ago. Somewhere down the line, technology advanced enough to recreate what makes an actor recognizable—their voice, facial expressions, and distinct mannerisms. This trend, often referred to as “digital resurrection,” involves using deep learning models to recreate deceased individuals for movies, advertisements, or public displays. While tech enthusiasts see this as a way to preserve cultural history or finish uncompleted projects, it brings up serious legal and ethical issues.

There is genuine value here — in film, education, and preserving cultural memory. But can a company profit from a dead person’s likeness without the family ever agreeing to it? Do personality rights survive the person who held them? Who is actually in charge of someone’s digital identity once that person can no longer speak for themselves? A number of jurisdictions already have statutes protecting posthumous publicity rights. India does not.

When a studio digitally resurrects a late actor to star in a fresh cinematic project without the authorization of their estate, it creates an immediate conflict between corporate commercial interests and the legal rights of the actor’s surviving family. This issue lies at the precise intersection of post-mortem personality rights, copyright ownership over underlying training data, and the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence.

2. WHAT COUNTS AS A DIGITAL REPLICA?

An AI-generated digital replica is not simply archived footage re-edited for a new scene. It is a newly constructed digital model generated by feeding vast amounts of personal data—such as high-definition film clips, interviews, and audio tracks—into a machine learning system.

The algorithm processes these inputs to learn how the person looked, spoke, and moved, enabling studios to output entirely new performances.

Today, this technology goes beyond traditional visual effects. It includes virtual avatars in feature films, posthumous brand endorsements, and interactive chatbots. However, Indian law has not kept pace with these developments. The core legal problem is whether a production house can exploit a deceased actor’s image without permission, or if their legal heirs can enforce rights against unauthorized commercial exploitation. Resolving this requires courts to balance an artist’s freedom of expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution against the privacy and personality rights of the deceased and their family.

3. THE EXISTING INDIAN LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Personality Rights and the Right to Privacy

In India, personality rights have largely evolved through judicial precedent rather than specific legislation. The Supreme Court’s decision in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017) affirmed that the right to privacy is a fundamental right under Article 21, establishing that personal identity, bodily autonomy, and image rights are protected under the law. However, an unsettled legal question remains: does this right survive after death?

Generally, common law principles suggest that personal actions end upon a person’s death (actio personalis moritur cum persona). Because of this, legal heirs often struggle to assert privacy claims on behalf of a deceased relative unless they can show a direct violation of their own reputation or right to peace.

Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP Act, 2023)

The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 sets up a framework for handling personal data, defining it as any data that can identify an individual. To train AI models, studios process massive amounts of biometric data, facial scans, and voice recordings. However, the DPDP Act is largely silent on the personal data of deceased individuals. It does not provide clear mechanisms for legal heirs to grant or revoke consent for processing a deceased person’s historical data, leaving a noticeable regulatory gap in the context of digital cloning.

There is a critical gap: “The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA) protects only the living. No statutory mechanism for digital wills, posthumous data rights, or avatar protection exists.” I note that platform terms consequently dominate digital legacy governance, with companies rather than law determining what happens to deceased users’ data.

Copyright Act, 1957

The Copyright Act, 1957 protects original literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, along with sound recordings and cinematograph films. Under Section 38B, performers are granted moral rights, including the right to restrain any distortion or modification of their performance that would be prejudicial to their reputation.

However, copyright law protects the expression of work, not a person’s physical appearance, voice tone, or personal mannerisms. While a studio might own the copyright to older films used to train an AI model, using that data to create a new synthetic performance sits outside traditional copyright infringement. This leaves actors without a explicit remedy under intellectual property law when their likeness is harvested for generative AI training.

Put these pieces together and a few problems stand out. There is no statutory recognition of posthumous personality rights in India, so unless a copyright or trademark is infringed, commercially exploiting a deceased person through AI is, functionally, unregulated. Consent is unresolved too — a person cannot meaningfully agree in advance to a recreation that does not yet exist, and there is no legal mechanism for advance digital directives, nor clarity on whether family members can consent on the deceased’s behalf. Misrepresentation is a further risk: a digitally recreated person can be made to endorse a product, a politician, or an opinion they never held in life, and this is no longer hypothetical.

Common Law Remedies and Tort Law

Because statutory remedies are limited, courts rely on common law torts—primarily the action for passing off and tortious misrepresentation. If an AI performance tricks the public into believing that a deceased actor or their estate endorsed a product or film, the heirs may seek an injunction. However, passing off requires proving commercial damage and misrepresentation, which can be difficult to establish if the studio explicitly adds a disclaimer stating that the performance is an AI simulation.

4. JUDICIAL ANALYSIS

1. Krishna Kishore Singh v. Sarla A. Saraogi (2021) [Sushant Singh Rajput Case]: The Delhi High Court evaluated an application by the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s father seeking an injunction against films inspired by the actor’s life. The court ruled that celebrity rights and personality rights are extinguished upon death. It highlighted that information available in the public domain can be utilized for creative expressions, and personal rights cannot be enforced posthumously by legal representatives to restrict artistic freedom under Article 19(1)(a).
2. Jaikishan Kakubhai Saraf Alias Jackie Shroff v. Peppy Store & Ors. (2024): The Delhi High Court addressed the unauthorized commercial use of actor Jackie Shroff’s name, voice, image, and trademarked terms (such as “Bhidu”). Justice Sanjeev Narula granted an interim injunction restraining various entities from using the actor’s personality traits for commercial gain without authorization. The court emphasized that while technology enables easy replication of a person’s identity, exploiting an individual’s persona without a license infringes on their personality rights and amounts to unfair competition.
3. Anil Kapoor v. Simply Life India & Ors. (2023): In a landmark order concerning AI misuse, the Delhi High Court restrained various websites and platforms from using actor Anil Kapoor’s name, voice, likeness, or signature phrases for commercial purposes via AI tools, deepfakes, or synthetic voice generation. The court recognized that non-consensual digital cloning creates severe commercial and reputational harm, establishing that an individual’s personality features cannot be commercialized without explicit consent.

Key Takeaways from Judicial Trends

An analysis of Indian case law shows a clear distinction between living celebrities and deceased figures. Courts actively grant ex-parte injunctions to protect living artists from unauthorized AI generation and deepfakes. However, when it comes to deceased personalities, courts remain hesitant to create an absolute posthumous right without explicit legislative guidance, prioritizing freedom of speech and artistic creation under Article 19(1)(a).

5. REASONED LEGAL OPINION

The current legal position in India leaves the rights of deceased actors in an uncertain state. On one hand, protecting artistic expression is essential for cinema, historical documentation, and creative satire. On the other hand, allowing studios complete freedom to digitally clone deceased actors without heir consent opens the door to commercial exploitation and distortion of a person’s legacy.

A middle-ground framework is necessary. Personality rights should not be treated as purely personal privacy rights that die with the individual, nor should they be recognized as perpetual property rights that heirs can monetize indefinitely. Instead, India should adopt a balanced approach.

Mandatory Consent: Using a deceased actor’s proprietary audio or video archives specifically to train generative AI for new commercial films should require explicit authorization from the estate.

6. CONCLUSION

The emergence of AI-driven digital resurrection has pushed media production far ahead of existing statutory laws in India. While tools like GANs and voice synthesis offer unique possibilities for cinema, they present serious legal risks to the dignity and identity of deceased individuals. Current judicial rulings offer solid protections for living artists against deepfakes, but the lack of posthumous personality protection leaves legal heirs with limited remedies.

To address this gap, the Legislature needs to update existing laws—either by amending the Copyright Act or by introducing specific publicity rights within data protection frameworks. Striking a fair balance between commercial innovation, artistic expression, and the dignity of an actor’s legacy is essential to ensure that technology serves as a tool for creative honor rather than unauthorized exploitation.