AI Voice Cloning And Personality Rights In India: Can A Person Claim Exclusive Rights Over An Identifiable Voice?
Vatsal Sutaria, NMIMS’ Kirit P Mehta School of Law
Archie Kotwani, NMIMS’ Kirit P Mehta School of Law
ABSTRACT
Voice-cloning tools are now capable of producing new speech or songs in the voice of a real person from recordings of that person. Currently, no Indian statute names the voice as something a person owns. Since 2022, however, the Delhi and Bombay High Courts have granted injunctions that list voice among the protected attributes of well-known persons, and in 2024 and 2025 the Bombay High Court applied this to AI platforms (namely Mayk Inc. and Covers AI) that cloned the voices of Arijit Singh and Asha Bhosle. This paper asks what those orders actually protect. It argues that Indian law gives a well-known person a right to stop unconsented commercial or misleading use of an identifiable version of their voice, but not an exclusive right in the sound of the voice itself. Copyright and trade mark law add little. The main gaps are the celebrity threshold, the absence of any final judgment on voice cloning, and the lack of stated exceptions for parody and mimicry.
Keywords: personality rights, voice cloning, performers’ rights, right of publicity, Article 21.
