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In the past few years, Indian celebs are knocking on the court's door to protect their personality rights. Amitabh Bachchan, Kumar Sanu, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Karan Johar, Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Suniel Shetty, Pawan Kalyan and many more have already secured such protections, signaling a wider push for judicial recognition of personality rights in the digital era.

Protection of personality and publicity rights restrains the unauthorised commercial use of one's name, voice, image and persona. It prohibits AI-generated, face-morphed and deepfake content from misusing one's identity for commercial or other purposes. While on one side there are celebs seeking personality rights, 25-year-old Italian influencer Khaby Lame did the opposite and became a billionaire.

Khaby Lame is among the most popular social media influencers in the world. He is known for his poker face expressions and silent reels in which he roasts "internet hacks" by wearing his signature deadpan expressions. Many have even likened him to Charlie Chaplin, the icon of silent and slapstick comedy. Khaby has disrupted the influencer market with his latest move.

He has sold his company Step Distinctive Limited, which manages his global brand and commercial activities, to Rich Sparkle, a publicly traded holding company based in Hong Kong, in a transaction valued at $975 million, according to a public SEC filing. As part of the deal, Khaby has authorised “the use of his Face ID, Voice ID, and behavioral models for AI Digital Twin development” for the creation of multilingual, cross-time-zone livestream e-commerce content.

The AI version of Lame will be using his face, voice and mannerisms. His "digital twin" will produce content in multiple languages and operate across different time zones, essentially multiplying his online presence.

While this deal has made him a billionaire, the expected revenue this move could generate is estimated to be running into multi-billions. “Khaby Lame’s fan-based commercialisation could generate more than $4 billion in annual sales,” Rich Sparkle Holdings said in a filing.

Interestingly, Khaby is an immigrant settled in Italy. His videos took off during the Covid pandemic and his latest move is set to turn around the influencer driven economy.