Bollywood Star Sues Google, Asks For Personal Rights To Be Protected From AI Threats

The couple Abhishek Bachchan and Aishawarya Rai Bachchan (photo; x @UmairSandu)

JAKARTA Bollywood stars are now starting to sue tech giants to protect their voices and personal images in the era of artificial intelligence (AI). The famous celebrity couple Abhishek Bachchan and Aishawarya Rai Bachchan, targeted Google through its video unit, YouTube, in a big lawsuit that could have a broad impact on the use of AI in India.

The couple asked judges to remove and ban the creation of AI videos that violate their intellectual property rights. Furthermore, they urged Google to be required to provide a safety mechanism so that videos that remain uploaded to YouTube are not used to train other AI platforms.

There Are No Special Rules In India Yet

India itself does not yet have explicit rules regarding "personal rights" as it does in several states in the United States. However, a number of Bollywood celebrities have begun to assert these rights through courts in recent years. Bachchan's case has become the most prominent because it concerns the intersection between personality rights and the risk of spreading deepfake videos on YouTube.

In a lawsuit dated September 6, Abhishek and Aishawarya assessed that YouTube's policies that allow users to give permission to use their content to train third-party AI models are very dangerous. They are worried that it will increase the spread of misleading content.

Such content, when used to train AI models, has the potential to double the use of violating material: first posted on YouTube, watched by the public, then used to train AI, "as written in the lawsuit.

Google lawyers were asked by the Delhi High Court to provide a written response before the next hearing on January 15, 2026.

India is the largest global YouTube market with around 600 million users, especially for Bollywood entertainment content. Gunjan Soni, Managing Director of YouTube India, last month called the platform a new TV for India.

Even so, the legal case shows its dark side. Last year, Delhi's court banned the abuse of names, pictures, voices, and the iconic phrase belonging to senior actor Anil Kapoor. Now, Bachchan's case is increasing his pressure.

In a 1,500-page lawsuit, they also targeted unofficial sellers who traded merchandise with pictures of their faces, ranging from posters, hugs, stickers, to fake signed photos. They demanded compensation of 450,000 US dollars (approximately IDR 7.4 billion) from Google and other parties, and demanded a permanent ban on such exploitation.

AI Content Egregious And Damages Reputation

The judge in early September ordered the removal of 518 links and uploads reported by the couple. The content is considered to cause financial losses as well as damage their dignity.

However, similar videos are still circulating on YouTube. Some of them:

- Video of AI manipulation showing Abhishek suddenly kissing an actress.

- Video of Aishawarya and Salman Khan having dinner together, while Abhishek standing jealous behind.

- Funny video shows the crocodile chasing Abhishek while Salman Khan tries to save him.

Specifically for the last case, the public linked it to the past of Aisha who had a relationship with Salman Khan.

AI Bollywood: Viral Virtual Love

This kind of content phenomenon is getting more and more crowded. A YouTube channel called AI Bollywood Ishq has uploaded 259 videos of Bollywood AI love stories with a total of 16.5 million shows. The most popular video of AI animations Aishawarya and Salman Khan in the swimming pool was watched 4.1 million times.

In its tutorial, the channel admits that it only uses a simple text prompt on Grok AI (owned by X/Elon Musk) then turns it into a video with Hailuo AI, a startup from China. Reuters' test even managed to produce an AI fight video between Salman Khan and Abhishek in just five minutes.

Although the channel emphasized that the content was only made for entertainment and creative stories, the Bachchan couple considered it to still harm their reputation, especially if it was then used to train other AIs.

Future Legal Implications

According to Eashan Ghosh, an intellectual property rights expert from Delhi's National Law University, it is difficult for actors to build cases directly against YouTube because actually the main problem lies with content creators.

However, he considered it not impossible for the court to encourage YouTube to update its user policy or provide a "fast route" for celebrity claims to be handled more quickly.

YouTube itself said it had paid more than 2.4 billion US dollars (Rp39 trillion) to Indian creators in the last three years. But for Bachchan, some creators actually benefit from AI content that violates their personality rights.