NEW DELHI – In India, Bollywood stars are asking judges to protect their voice and persona in the era of artificial intelligence (AI). One famous couple\u2019s biggest target is Google\u2019s video arm YouTube.<\/p>\n
Abhishek Bachchan and his wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, known for her iconic Cannes Film Festival red carpet appearances, have asked a judge to remove and prohibit creation of AI videos infringing their intellectual property rights.<\/p>\n
But in a more far-reaching request, they also want Google ordered to have safeguards to ensure such YouTube videos uploaded anyway do not train other AI platforms, legal papers reviewed by Reuters show.<\/p>\n
A handful of Bollywood celebrities have begun asserting their \u201cpersonality rights\u201d in Indian courts over the last few years, as the country has no explicit protection for those like in many American states. <\/p>\n
But the Bachchans\u2019 lawsuits are the most high-profile to date about the interplay of personality rights and the risk that misleading or deepfake YouTube videos could train other AI models.<\/p>\n
The actors argue that YouTube\u2019s content and third-party training policy is concerning as it lets users consent to sharing of a video they created to train rival AI models, risking further proliferation of misleading content online, according to near-identical filings from Abhishek, 49, and Aishwarya, 51, dated Sept 6, which are not public. <\/p>\n
\u201cSuch content being used to train AI models has the potential to multiply the instances of use of any infringing content, i.e. first being uploaded on YouTube being viewed by the public, and then also being used to train,\u201d the filings said.<\/p>\n
Representatives for the Bachchans and Google spokespersons did not respond to Reuters\u2019 queries. The Delhi High Court in September asked Google\u2019s lawyer in court to submit written responses before the next hearing on Jan 15.<\/p>\n
YouTube\u2019s India managing director, Ms Gunjan Soni, in September described the platform as \u201cthe new TV for India\u201d. With around 600 million users, India is YouTube\u2019s biggest market globally, and it is popular for entertainment content like Bollywood videos.<\/p>\n
Indian courts have already started to back Bollywood stars upset about generative AI content damaging their reputation. In 2023, a Delhi court restrained the misuse of Anil Kapoor\u2019s image, voice and even a catchphrase he often used.<\/p>\n
Reuters is first to report details of the Bachchans\u2019 specific challenge against Google, which was contained in court filings spanning 1,500 pages where they mostly target little-known sellers for unauthorised physical merchandise like posters, coffee mugs and stickers with their photos, and even fake autographed pictures.<\/p>\n
They are also seeking US$450,000 (S$579,000) in damages against Google and others, and a permanent injunction against such exploitation.<\/p>\n
The lawsuits contain hundreds of links and screenshots of what they allege are YouTube videos showing \u201cegregious\u201d, \u201csexually explicit\u201d or \u201cfictitious\u201d AI content. <\/p>\n
The judge in early September ordered 518 website links and posts specifically listed by the actors to be taken down, saying they caused financial harm to the couple and harmed their dignity and goodwill.<\/p>\n
Reuters, however, found videos similar to the examples of infringing videos cited in Abhishek\u2019s papers on YouTube.<\/p>\n
Among them: a clip showing Abhishek posing but then suddenly kissing a film actress using AI manipulation; an AI depiction of Aishwarya and her co-star Salman Khan enjoying a meal together while Abhishek fumes standing behind; and a crocodile chasing Abhishek as Khan tries to save him.<\/p>\n
Khan, 59, was in a relationship with Aishwarya long before her marriage in 2007. His spokesperson did not respond to Reuters\u2019 queries.<\/p>\n
YouTube\u2019s data-sharing policy states creators can opt in to share their videos for training models of other AI platforms, like OpenAI, Meta and xAI. <\/p>\n
YouTube adds: \u201cWe can\u2019t control what a third-party company does\u201d if users share videos for such training.<\/p>\n
The Bachchans argue in their filings that if AI platforms are trained on biased content that portrays them in a negative manner and infringes their intellectual property rights, then AI models \u201care likely to learn all such untrue\u201d information, leading to its further spread.<\/p>\n
Mr Eashan Ghosh, chair professor for intellectual property rights at the National Law University Delhi, said it would be difficult for actors to build a direct case against YouTube since their grievances are mostly with creators and personality rights infringement.<\/p>\n
But \u201cit wouldn\u2019t be beyond the pale for the court to nudge YouTube to write something into their user policies or set up a queue jump for celebrity claimants to get quicker responses to legal requests\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
YouTube in May disclosed that it had paid more than US$2.4 billion to Indian creators in the last three years. The actors alleged that creators infringing their personality rights can make money when videos become popular.<\/p>\n
Reuters found a channel on YouTube titled \u201cAI Bollywood Ishq\u201d that shares \u201cAI-generated Bollywood love stories\u201d. Its 259 videos have garnered 16.5 million views. <\/p>\n
The most popular video with 4.1 million views shows an AI animation of Khan and Aishwarya in a pool, while another shows them on a swing.<\/p>\n
In a tutorial, the channel explains it used simple text prompts to create an image via X\u2019s Grok AI and then turned it into a video using Chinese AI startup MiniMax\u2019s Hailuo AI. A Reuters test generated an AI video showing lookalikes of Khan and Abhishek in a fistfight within five minutes.<\/p>\n
Grok, MiniMax and the owner of YouTube channel @AIbollywoodishq did not respond to Reuters\u2019 queries. It was unclear whether the YouTube channel consented to sharing those videos for AI training. <\/p>\n
\u201cContent is made only for entertainment and creative storytelling,\u201d the channel\u2019s page said. REUTERS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW DELHI – In India, Bollywood stars are asking judges to protect their voice and persona in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":["post-51148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}