Authored By: Apoorva
Army Institute of Law
In an age where artificial intelligence can replicate human voices, faces, and mannerisms with startling accuracy, we stand at a critical juncture in the evolution of legal protection for human dignity and creative expression. While technological innovation deserves encouragement, not all outputs of technology merit the same constitutional and statutory protections afforded to genuine human creativity. This article argues that AI-generated impersonations of public figures whether for commercial gain, political manipulation, or supposed humor cannot and should not be protected as creative expression under Indian law.
The central proposition is straightforward: AI-generated impersonations violate fundamental constitutional values, fail to meet the statutory requirements for copyright protection, and undermine the very essence of what it means to be an author. These synthetic creations exploit real human identities without consent, threaten reputational integrity, and blur the line between truth and fabrication in ways that endanger public discourse and individual rights.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL IMPERATIVE: BALANCING FREEDOM WITH RESPONSIBILITY
Freedom of speech and expression, enshrined in Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, stands as one of the cornerstones of our democracy. Yet, this freedom has never been absolute. The framers of our Constitution, in their wisdom, recognized that unbridled expression could harm other equally fundamental values. Article 19(2) empowers the State to impose reasonable restrictions in the interests of sovereignty, integrity, security, public order, decency, morality, defamation, contempt of court, and incitement to offences.
The Hon’ble Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized this balance. In Subramanian Swamy v. Union of India, the Court unequivocally held that the right to reputation is an integral component of Article 21, the right to life and personal liberty. This means that speech causing reputational harm to another individual does not enjoy constitutional protection when it violates dignity and honor.
Consider the practical implications of AI-generated impersonations. When a platform enables the creation of hyper-realistic videos showing a public figure apparently endorsing products they have never used, making political statements they have never uttered, or engaging in conduct they have never exhibited, the consequences are profound and multifaceted. The public is deceived into believing falsehoods. The individual’s professional credibility suffers. Existing contractual relationships, including endorsement agreements, may be jeopardized. Most painfully, the victim faces ridicule, abuse, and the helpless sensation of watching their own image weaponized against them in the digital public sphere.
This is not creative expression deserving protection it is identity theft masquerading as innovation. As the Supreme Court held in R.G. Anand v. Deluxe Films, the law does not protect imitation that leads to confusion about identity. The unauthorized digital replication of a person’s voice, likeness, expressions, and persona infringes upon the dignity and reputation guaranteed under Article 21. When such replication occurs without consent and causes public confusion or reputational damage, it cannot claim shelter under Article 19(1)(a).
The distinction between legitimate artistic expression and harmful impersonation is crucial. Traditional satire, parody, and commentary involve human creativity transforming source material into something recognizably new. They engage in dialogue with their subjects. AI-generated impersonations, by contrast, seek to pass as the genuine article. They aim not to comment upon or critique the public figure, but to fraudulently substitute for that person’s authentic voice and image. This distinction matters because our constitutional framework protects creative expression, not deceptive mimicry.
THE COPYRIGHT CONUNDRUM: WHY AI CANNOT BE AN AUTHOR
The Human Authorship Requirement
At the heart of copyright law lies a simple but profound principle: authors must be human. This is not mere technicality or antiquated thinking it reflects the fundamental purpose and philosophy of copyright protection. Section 2(d) of the Copyright Act, 1957, defines author as an individual responsible for the creation of a work. Section 13 specifies that copyright subsists in original works authored by humans. The Act even references the lifetime of the author in determining copyright duration, clearly contemplating mortal beings, not algorithms.
Indian copyright law demands human creativity and originality for protection to subsist. This requirement is not arbitrary. It stems from the understanding that copyright rewards and incentivizes human intellectual effort, creativity, and expression. An AI system, however sophisticated, is fundamentally a copying machine. It analyzes patterns in existing data and recombines them according to statistical probabilities. It cannot produce works reflecting original intellectual conception because it possesses no capacity for thinking or creating in the human sense.
The famous Turing Test, designed to evaluate whether a machine can simulate human-like communication, actually reinforces this point. Even when AI output appears indistinguishable from human creation, it remains simulation, not creativity. The machine follows instructions and executes algorithms; it does not experience the creative impulse, make aesthetic judgments, or imbue its output with personal meaning. Recognizing AI as an author is, in the words of copyright scholars, a doctrinal non-starter.
The Philosophical Foundation: Romantic Authorship Theory
The Creationist, or Romantic Author, Theory of copyright provides essential philosophical grounding for the human authorship requirement. This theory holds that copyright exists to reward the moral and creative personality of authors expressed through their works. Copyright protection acknowledges the unique human capacity to transform thoughts, emotions, and experiences into creative expression that reflects individual personality and vision.
AI systems have no personality to express. They experience no emotions to channel into creative work. They hold no moral vision to impart. They are sophisticated tools, nothing more. While the humans who design and train AI systems certainly exercise creativity and deserve recognition for that work, the AI itself remains incapable of the intentionality and self-directed creativity that characterize human authorship.
This philosophical foundation has practical legal implications. Copyright law protects not just the output but the creative process and personality behind it. When we recognize AI as an author, we sever this essential connection between creator and creation, rendering copyright protection essentially meaningless a mere commodity divorced from human creativity and dignity.
Why Joint Authorship Fails for AI
Proponents of AI-generated content sometimes argue for joint authorship between humans and AI systems. This argument fails both legally and practically. Section 2(z) of the Copyright Act defines a work of joint authorship as one produced through the collaboration of two or more authors, where contributions are not distinct from one another. Since AI cannot qualify as an author under the Act, it cannot participate in joint authorship.
The landmark Delhi High Court judgment in Institute for Inner Studies Publishing Foundation Trust v. Charlotte Anderson established clear essentials for joint authorship: there must be common intent among contributors to create the work; the contributions of each author must be inseparable with no clear division of labor; and each contributor must provide substantial and original creative input.
AI-generated works fail each of these requirements. First, AI lacks intent entirely it functions as a tool following programmed instructions. Second, AI contributions are easily distinguishable from human contributions; the algorithm processes data while the human provides prompts or selects outputs. Third, as established earlier, AI provides no creative input in the legal sense, only computational processing of existing data.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Eastern Book Company v. D.B. Modak established that originality in Indian copyright law derives from the sweat of the brow doctrine, requiring human skill, labor, and judgment. AI, operating through algorithms without intellectual input or intent, cannot meet this originality requirement. Similarly, in R.G. Anand v. Deluxe Films, the Court reiterated that authorship involves intellectual creativity a uniquely human characteristic that AI inherently lacks.
The Originality Problem
The requirement of originality poses another insurmountable obstacle for AI-generated works. In V.T. Thomas v. Malayala Manorama Co. Ltd. (Navigators), a copyright claim based on computer-generated lists was denied due to insufficient human involvement in the creative process. The case established a Significant Input test comprising two elements: evident human engagement in creation, and significant human talent, judgment, and effort.
AI-generated impersonations fail this test. While a user might provide prompts describing desired output, this minimal input does not constitute the level of creative engagement, talent, judgment, and effort required for copyright protection. The AI performs the substantive work of analyzing existing images and videos, extracting patterns, and generating synthetic outputs. The user’s role is more akin to a customer ordering a product than an author creating a work.
Furthermore, AI-generated material typically constitutes recombination of pre-existing content found across the internet. The AI has no original creative vision; it simply processes and reassembles data according to probabilistic patterns learned during training. This is fundamentally different from human creativity, which transforms inspiration and influence into genuinely new expression reflecting the author’s unique perspective and skill.
International Standards Support Human Authorship
Global copyright principles reinforce the human authorship requirement. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, to which India is a signatory, underscores that copyright extends exclusively to works created by human authors. Article 2(1) defines literary and artistic works as intellectual creations requiring human engagement. Article 2(3) specifies that translations, adaptations, and arrangements receive protection only when they showcase human creativity.
The United States Copyright Office’s 2019 policy explicitly excludes AI-generated works from copyright protection unless there is substantial human involvement in the creation. This international consensus reflects shared understanding that copyright protection serves to incentivize and reward human creativity, not to create property rights in machine outputs.
Notably, the Indian Copyright Office itself has grappled with this issue. In at least one documented case, the Copyright Office mistakenly registered a work developed with AI support, only to subsequently issue a withdrawal notice criticizing the applicant’s failure to articulate the legal standing of the AI tool. This demonstrates institutional recognition that AI-generated works cannot satisfy statutory requirements for copyright protection.
MORAL RIGHTS AND THE DIGNITY OF HUMAN CREATION
The concept of moral rights provides perhaps the clearest illustration of why AI cannot be considered an author. Section 57 of the Copyright Act confers moral rights upon authors, including the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation, modification, or other acts prejudicial to the author’s honor or reputation.
These rights are described as special because they protect something beyond mere economic interests they safeguard the personal connection between creator and creation. The Supreme Court’s decision in Amar Nath Sehgal v. Union of India emphasized that moral rights guarantee the integrity and honor of the author’s work, recognizing the deeply personal relationship between human creators and their creative output.
This personal dimension is intrinsically tied to human dignity. Moral rights exist because creative works embody something of their creators their vision, their values, their unique perspective on the world. An AI has no honor to protect, no reputation to safeguard, no dignity to defend. It experiences no injury when its output is modified or distorted because it experiences nothing at all. Extending moral rights to AI would be not just legally incorrect but philosophically absurd.
European Union copyright directives expressly tie moral rights to human creators, reinforcing their human-centric character. This aligns with broader international human rights principles. Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, recognizes everyone’s right to the protection of moral and material interests resulting from scientific, literary, or artistic production of which they are the author. This right belongs to humans, not machines.
When platforms claim moral rights over AI-generated impersonations, they reveal the fundamental incoherence of treating AI as an author. These platforms assert no personal connection to the synthetic outputs, no creative vision embodied in the impersonations, no honor or reputation at stake. Their claimed moral rights are purely commercial interests masquerading as authorship protections an abuse of legal doctrine that threatens to undermine the entire purpose of moral rights protection.
THE DANGER OF ALGORITHMIC EXPLOITATION
Recognizing copyright in AI-generated impersonations would have profound and troubling consequences. It would essentially grant legal protection to algorithmic mimicry, facilitating commercial exploitation of real human identities without consent. This outcome contradicts not only the purpose of copyright law but also the constitutional protection of dignity under Article 21.
Consider the implications through the lens of Locke’s Labour Theory of Property, which underlies much copyright philosophy. Locke argued that individuals acquire rights over the products of their own intellectual and physical labor. Copyright law protects human creativity, originality, and personality embedded in works. In cases of AI-generated impersonations, whose labor creates value? The impersonated individual, whose voice, face, expressions, and mannerisms provide the raw material. The AI does not labor it executes algorithms. The platform operator does not labor creatively they provide infrastructure.
Yet under a system that recognizes copyright in AI-generated impersonations, the impersonated individual the actual source of value receives nothing. Their identity attributes are extracted and replicated without consent or compensation. Meanwhile, the platform claims ownership over synthetic reproductions of someone else’s persona. This inversion of Lockean principles represents not just legal error but moral injustice.
The Work Made for Hire Doctrine, sometimes invoked to support AI-generated content, provides no solution. This doctrine attributes authorship to employers who supervise and direct creative processes. However, neither the user providing prompts nor the platform operating the AI exercises the degree of creative control required to constitute authorship. The user offers general direction; the platform provides automated statistical recombination. Neither engages in the sustained creative effort, judgment, and skill that characterize genuine authorship.
Without human authorship that satisfies statutory requirements, no copyright can validly subsist in AI-generated impersonations. Attempts to claim such copyright represent not innovation but appropriation the unauthorized taking of human identity attributes for commercial exploitation behind a technological veil.
CONCLUSION: PROTECTING HUMANITY IN THE AGE OF AI
The question of whether AI-generated impersonations deserve protection as creative expression ultimately concerns what kind of society we wish to build in an age of rapidly advancing technology. Will we be a society that values human dignity, creativity, and authentic expression? Or will we sacrifice these values to facilitate technological exploitation of human identity?
The law provides clear answers. Constitutionally, Article 19(1)(a) protects freedom of expression but not deceptive impersonation that violates the Article 21 rights to dignity and reputation affirmed in Subramanian Swamy. Article 19(2) authorizes reasonable restrictions to protect public order, decency, morality, and reputation all of which AI-generated impersonations threaten. Statutorily, the Copyright Act’s human authorship requirement, originality standards, and moral rights framework all exclude AI-generated works from protection.
These legal principles rest on sound philosophical and practical foundations. Copyright exists to incentivize and reward human creativity, not to grant property rights in machine outputs. Moral rights protect the personal connection between creators and their works 2014 connection that cannot exist when the purported author is an algorithm. International standards, from the Berne Convention to U.S. Copyright Office policies to EU directives, consistently emphasize human authorship as essential to copyright protection.
Recognizing these principles does not inhibit beneficial technological innovation. Human creators can and should use AI as a tool, much as they use cameras, word processors, or digital editing software. What matters is substantial human involvement in the creative process the application of human skill, judgment, creativity, and originality that transforms raw materials into genuine expression. When AI merely replicates existing human identity attributes through algorithmic processing, no such creative transformation occurs.
The stakes extend beyond individual cases to the fabric of public discourse. In an era of deepfakes and synthetic media, maintaining clear legal distinctions between authentic human expression and AI-generated impersonation becomes critical for preserving truth, trust, and meaningful democratic participation. When anyone’s face and voice can be convincingly replicated to say or do anything, the entire foundation of public discourse erodes.
Therefore, the law must not grant constitutional or statutory protection to AI-generated impersonations. Such protection would constitute a profound category error treating algorithmic mimicry as creative expression, elevating machine processing above human dignity, and facilitating precisely the kind of exploitation and deception that legal protections should prevent. The Copyright Act’s human authorship requirement, the Constitution’s balance between expression and reputation, and the philosophical foundations of creative rights all converge on a single conclusion: AI-generated impersonations of public figures cannot be protected as creative expression and must remain subject to appropriate limitations that uphold societal values and safeguard individual rights.
In defending these principles, we defend not merely legal doctrine but human dignity itself the recognition that some things, including our voices, our faces, and our identities, cannot be appropriated by machines or commodified by platforms. We affirm that creativity remains distinctly human, that authorship carries moral meaning, and that the law exists ultimately to protect persons, not to facilitate their synthetic replication. This is the foundation upon which a just and humane legal framework for the age of artificial intelligence must be built.
