In the recent past, there's been a lot of news about celebrities going to the courts for protection against unauthorized use of their persona in social media. In other words, social media, apps, digital companies using the NILP (Name, Image, Likeness and Persona) of the celebrity without paying for it.
That's a gross violation because the celebrity has full right to earn from his NILP- just as a company has full right to earn from its brand, product and service. It's like a fraudulent use to earn money. In addition, many celebrities have a moral hazard clause where they can refuse to endorse or give their rights to a product or service even if within the contract - say, Paan Masala or cigars and liquor. This is where highest risk lies, as the government of India now holds the endorser also liable for products / services he endorses.
The digital rights space is exploding as the social media markets boom. Unlike in the old days, an unauthorized use could have been restricted to one area or time; today it goes viral globally within seconds. In turn this means a product that would have cost crores for such an endorsement would get it for free if they could get away with illegal use of digital asserts.
The root cause of concerns are deepfakes, voice cloning, imagery enabled by AI software that's getting ever more sophisticated and cheaper. The remedies fall into four main categories- cease and desist orders against John Doe (all unknown people), platform takedowns ( Youtube/ Insta/ X etc), ex-parte relief where the offender is known; and commercial bans (prevention of use in ads etc).
The courts route is post facto action; given the scale, speed and sheer scope of NILP offenses, celebs need to look at proactive measures to protect and monetize their rights.
How can this be done?
For starters, it may be useful to create a repository with a firm ( like a celeb management firm or a law firm) to hold their NILP assets; this can be purely the rights to use a particular digital asset ( gait / speech/ image etc) which can be paid for and integrated by third party creators like ad agencies; and a tech database much like a vending machine in which you pay in the money, get the digital asset for a particular time and occasion, and which automatically disables once the contract is over. The former is an agency model, the latter a full-blown tech solution that allows full control and monetization. The celebs need to understand there will be a fee for this- after all, they get a majority of monetization, which is better than losing it all!
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