Court Case Casts Shadow On Ilaiyaraaja’s 4.5K Songs

CHENNAI, (IANS) – A division bench of the Madras High Court has ruled that all the commercial transactions of around 4,500 film songs for which the acclaimed composer R. Ilaiyaraaja had tuned, would be subject to the result of an appeal in a case filed by Echo Recording Private Limited.

Justices R. Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq on April 24 passed the interim order but recognized the composer’s moral right over his compositions.

The hearing of the appeal has been adjourned till the second week of June.

The company has contended that a composer who had taken remuneration from a film producer for composing songs could not continue to claim any right over those songs. The senior lawyer quoted profusely from provisions of the Copyright Act of 1957. He argued that the copyright of the songs would vest with the film producers and added that Echo Recording had purchased those rights from multiple film producers.

The argument stated that in the light of these facts the composer could not be allowed to commercially exploit those songs by giving a license to music streaming platforms such as Spotify.

Lawyers representing the music maestro quoted Section 17 of the Copyright Act and contended that the copyright for his client’s compositions would continue to subsist with him regardless of the agreements entered with the film producers and that Ilaiyaraaja as composer is the owner of the copyright and added that if there was any challenge to his title, the petitioners would have to show an employment agreement.