Delhi High Court Orders Takedown of Deepfake Endorsements and Unauthorised Lecture Clips Using an Educator's Identity
Background and Facts
A single suit can engage three different sets of rights, and the remedy for each runs on a different trigger. The Delhi High Court has directed the removal of deepfake endorsements and other content misusing an educator's identity, and has ordered the intermediaries to disclose who uploaded it. The suit is Dr Vikas Divyakirti v. Meta Platforms Inc and others, before Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, reported on September 29, 2026.
Three kinds of content were complained of. There were profiles and channels using the plaintiff's name and photograph as though they were his own. There were deepfake videos showing him endorsing betting and trading platforms he has no connection with. And there were clips of his recorded lectures reproduced without authorisation.
The Court directed the platforms to remove or disable access to the listed material, and directed them to furnish the basic subscriber information and internet protocol logs of the accounts behind it. In the course of the hearing the Court also questioned the platform about a feature that lets a user take an existing video, alter it and repost it as their own.
Key Legal Issue
Whether the three complaints engage the same right or different ones, and what an intermediary is obliged to do about each. The answer matters because the performer's right in a recorded lecture, the personality interest in a name and face, and the copyright in the underlying material are separate, are held on different terms, and are enforced on different timelines.
What the Court Directed
The operative relief was a takedown of the identified material and a disclosure direction against the intermediaries. That combination is the practical shape of such an order: removal deals with what is visible, and the subscriber information is what makes it possible to sue the people responsible rather than only the platform that hosted them.
A Lecturer Is a Performer, and That Is Not Incidental
The point is often missed because it looks like a copyright question. Section 2(qq) of the Copyright Act, 1957 defines a performer to include an actor, singer, musician, dancer, acrobat, juggler, conjurer, snake charmer, a person delivering a lecture or any other person who makes a performance. A lecture is therefore a performance within Section 2(q), which covers any visual or acoustic presentation made live by one or more performers.
Section 38 gives the performer a special right in that performance, subsisting for fifty years from the beginning of the calendar year following the year in which the performance was made. Section 38A makes it an exclusive right to do or authorise the making of a sound or visual recording of the performance, including reproduction in any material form, the issue of copies not already in circulation, communication to the public, and sale or commercial rental of any copy, as well as broadcasting or communicating the performance to the public.
So a person who records a lecture and reposts it has engaged the performer's right whether or not there is any separate copyright in the script. That is a distinct cause of action, available to the lecturer personally, and it does not depend on proving ownership of a literary work.
Where the Moral Rights Argument Stops
Section 38B gives the performer, independently of any assignment, the right to be identified as the performer except where omission is dictated by the manner of use, and the right to restrain or claim damages for any distortion, mutilation or other modification of the performance that would be prejudicial to his reputation.
The Explanation to that section is the part worth reading before relying on it. Mere removal of any portion of a performance for the purpose of editing, or to fit the recording within a limited duration, or any other modification required for purely technical reasons is not to be deemed prejudicial to the performer's reputation. Clipping on its own is therefore not a moral rights breach. What is arguable is selective clipping that changes what the speaker was saying, and the pleading has to be built on the change of meaning rather than on the fact of the cut.
The Fair Dealing Answer a Defendant Will Give
Section 52(1)(a) permits fair dealing with a work, other than a computer programme, for private or personal use including research, for criticism or review of that or any other work, and for the reporting of current events and current affairs, which expressly extends to the reporting of a lecture delivered in public. A defendant clipping a lecture to criticise the speaker will reach for the second and third of those, and on genuine criticism the defence has real content.
That is why the commercial cases are the stronger ones. A deepfake endorsement of a betting platform is not criticism, review or reporting of anything, and no fair dealing limb reaches it.
Why a Court Order Changes the Timetable
Under rule 3(2)(b) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, as amended in 2026, an intermediary has two hours from receipt of a complaint by the individual concerned, or a person acting on their behalf, to remove or disable access to content in the nature of impersonation in an electronic form, including artificially morphed images of that individual. That is the route a deepfake victim uses without going to court at all.
Rule 3(1)(d) is the other clock, and it is three hours, but it runs only from actual knowledge as the rule defines it, and the rule says that knowledge arises only from an order of a court of competent jurisdiction or a reasoned written intimation from an authorised officer. An order of the kind made here is what supplies that actual knowledge, which is the practical reason for obtaining one even where a complaint route exists.
Practice Notes
In practice, a claim of this kind should be pleaded in separable parts rather than as one grievance:
Plead the performer's right separately: Recording and reposting a lecture engages Section 38A whether or not the claimant owns copyright in the material. Pleading only copyright gives away a cause of action that belongs to the speaker personally.
Build the moral rights case on meaning, not on length: The Explanation to Section 38B takes mere editing and duration-fitting out of the prejudice enquiry. Show what the clip made him appear to say, side by side with what he said.
Separate the commercial deepfakes from the critical clips: The endorsement videos face no fair dealing answer. Mixing them into the same prayer as contested criticism clips invites a single, narrower order covering both.
Use the two-hour complaint route before and alongside the suit: Rule 3(2)(b) is engaged by a complaint from the individual, not by a court order, and it is the faster of the two windows for impersonation content.
Ask for subscriber information in the same application: Removal without disclosure leaves the same uploader free to repost. The basic subscriber information and protocol logs are what convert a takedown into a case against a person.
Key Provisions Discussed
Section 2(qq) of the Copyright Act, 1957: A performer includes an actor, singer, musician, dancer, acrobat, juggler, conjurer, snake charmer, a person delivering a lecture or any other person who makes a performance, with a proviso excluding casual or incidental unacknowledged performances in a cinematograph film.
Section 38 of the Copyright Act, 1957: The performer's right, subsisting for fifty years from the beginning of the calendar year following the year in which the performance was made.
Section 38A of the Copyright Act, 1957: The performer's exclusive right to do or authorise the making of a sound or visual recording of the performance, including reproduction in any material form, issue of copies not already in circulation, communication to the public and sale or commercial rental of a copy, and to broadcast or communicate the performance to the public.
Section 38B of the Copyright Act, 1957: The performer's moral rights to be identified and to restrain or claim damages for distortion, mutilation or other modification prejudicial to reputation, with an Explanation that mere removal of a portion for editing, to fit a limited duration or for purely technical reasons is not deemed prejudicial.
Section 52 of the Copyright Act, 1957: Fair dealing with a work other than a computer programme for private or personal use including research, for criticism or review, and for the reporting of current events and current affairs including the reporting of a lecture delivered in public.
Case Details
Case: Dr Vikas Divyakirti v. Meta Platforms Inc and others
Court: High Court of Delhi
Judge: Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani
Reported: September 29, 2026
Content Complained Of: Profiles and channels using the plaintiff's name and photograph, deepfake videos showing him endorsing betting and trading platforms, and unauthorised reproductions of his recorded lectures
Relief: Removal or disabling of access to the listed material, and disclosure by the intermediaries of the basic subscriber information and internet protocol logs of the accounts behind it
Sources and References
Delhi High Court quizzes Meta over Instagram feature being misused to violate copyright
Delhi High Court Orders Takedown Of Deepfake Content Against Drishti IAS Founder Vikas Divyakirti
Section 2 of the Copyright Act, 1957: definitions of performance and performer
Copyright Act, 1957, Sections 2, 38A, 38B and 52; Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, rules 3(1)(d) and 3(2)(b)
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified legal professional for advice specific to their circumstances.
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