Sony Music Files Copyright Infringement Suit In Bombay High Court Against Ilaiyaraja's Music Company

Sriram Bhakrisaran and Ilaiyaraaja are directors of IMM, however, the latter is not a party to Sony's suit.

The plaint claims that the Padma Bhushan awardee's company, by streaming music, is infringing at least 228 of the 536 title albums acquired by Sony through a series of transactions with various third parties. Sony states that the exploitation was brought to its notice in December 2021, therefore the urgency.

It sought ad-interim reliefs to restrain IMM from live streaming, or asserting any right to receive royalty over the 536 titles acquired by them and to disclose any agreements entered into regarding the title albums.

In the reply affidavit, IMM has accused Sony of making out a "false case of urgency", as the maestro's works (including the compositions Sony claims to own) are being distributed by 'Trend Loud Digital' since 2015.

IMM cited a division bench's order of the Madras HC wherein the court stayed decree passed against Ilaiyaraaja in respect of 310 titles composed by him of the 536 titles.

IMM said that Sony was aware of the distribution when it was negotiating for Ilaiyaraaja's entire repertoire of work last year. Infact, a non-disclosure-agreement was signed by the parties in December, 2021 but the negotiations did not materialize into a deal.

"It is evident and clear beyond reasonable doubt that the plaintiff (Sony) has derived the entire meta data from IMM [during negotiations]. The work and detailing require substantial effort, research and is extremely time consuming. It has taken more than 4 years for IMM to bring it to this stage..

"This plaintiff (Sony) without any such effort is just making use of the data received from the Defandant, that was otherwise available on the Ilaiyaraajya Official You Tube Channel since 2014-16 and simply proposing to upload the same in its own You Tube channel with a view to make unlawful gains and undue enrichment," IMM states.

The suit filed in January 2022 will be heard for ad-interim reliefs on March 31, 2022 seeking directions to restrain the Padma Bhushan awardee's company from exploiting several of his own compositions.

Ilaiyaraaja Sues For His Work

According to the plaint, Echo Recording Company Pvt Ltd obtained the copyrights of 536 title albums from various producers of films who were the first owners of such work composed by Dr Ilaiyaraaja and others.

Echo then transferred the rights to Oriental Records USA in February 2020 and from there, through a Catalogue Acquisition Agreement, Sony Music acquired rights for the sound recordings in the same month.

However, Ilaiyaraaja sued Echo claiming right, title and interest in respect of over 310 songs composed by him. The Madras High Court held that Echo was the legal owner of the sound recordings and was entitled to exploit the same.

The court however upheld Ilaiyaraaya's moral rights over his compositions. While Sony cited the Madras High court judgement in its plaint before the Bombay High Court in January 2022, earlier this month a division bench of the Madras HC stayed the decree after Ilaiyaraaja's counsels submitted that the suit was decreed without their counter claim. The matter will now be heard on March 28, 2022.

In the rejoinder, Sony has claimed that out of the 536 title albums, 192 albums are not composed by Ilaiyaraaja. While IMM has clearly asserted that 310 titles are Ilaiyaraaja's, the ownership of 34 titles are yet to be ascertained.

While Sony claims that they wanted to acquire rights to the entire catalogue of Ilaiyaraaja's work (excluding part of the album titles it indirectly purchased from Echo), IMMPL states that the negotiations included the 310 disputed titles.

The matter will now be heard for ad-interim reliefs.