Ilaiyaraaja moves Madras HC for share in Sony’s earnings from his music; alleges copyright violations | Chennai News

Music maestro Ilaiyaraaja filed a petition against Sony Music (File Photo) CHENNAI: Music maestro Ilaiyaraaja on Friday told Madras high court that he worked with film producers and creative collaborators has always been on a principal-to-principal basis and never as an employee or under a ‘work for hire’ arrangement.In his petition against Sony Music Entertainment India Pvt Ltd, he sought to restrain it from exploiting his compositions in more than 300 films on various digital platforms, including YouTube, Apple Music and Amazon. The petition demanded that the company be directed to render a true and faithful account of all revenues, receipts and profits derived from the exploitation of his works from Feb 18, 2022, and pay him all amounts found due, together with interest and costs. Admitting the plea, Justice N Senthil Kumar directed Sony to file its counter by Oct 22 and furnish day-to-day revenue collected from exploiting Ilaiyaraaja’s works.Senior advocate S Prabakaran, representing the music director, submitted that to date, no person or entity has produced documentation or legal basis to establish that Ilaiyaraaja parted with the title, ownership or any aspect of his rights in his original musical works. Hence, Sony is commercially exploiting Ilaiyaraaja’s works through digital platforms without complying with the Copyright Act, which mandates equal sharing of royalties with the original creator, the counsel argued.“Ilaiyaraaja is reliably given to understand that Sony is generating substantial revenue from such digital exploitation,” Prabakaran said. Apart from this, Sony has been publishing, modifying, mutilating, adapting, and remastering the composer’s original music works without authorisation, he added.



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