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The Delhi High Court heard cricketer Abhishek Sharma's plea against the alleged unauthorised use and AI manipulation of his name and image online. The Court observed that personality rights and defamation often overlap in digital disputes. Meta argued intermediaries cannot be expected to remove all critical content. The matter has been listed for further hearing on July 9.

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday examined the contours of personality rights while hearing a suit filed by Indian cricketer Abhishek Sharma seeking protection against the alleged unauthorised use of his name, image and likeness on online platforms, including AI-generated content.

Justice Jyoti Singh heard the matter and scrutinised several web links identified by Sharma as allegedly infringing his personality rights. The Court also made significant observations on the evolving intersection between personality rights and defamation in the digital era.

During the hearing, advocate Varun Pathak, appearing for Meta, informed the Court that out of eight URLs presently under consideration, two were no longer accessible. Referring to one of the remaining links, Pathak submitted that it appeared to be a "paparazzi kind of" post and did not, in his view, amount to a violation of personality rights.

Counsel appearing for Sharma, however, disputed the submission, contending that the impugned content was not an ordinary paparazzi photograph. It was argued that an original image of the cricketer with his manager had allegedly been altered using artificial intelligence by changing its appearance and context, thereby creating a misleading AI-generated image.