Madras High Court Issues Notice On Composer Ilaiyaraaja's Plea Over Copyright Infringement

Renowned composer Ilaiyaraaja has moved the Madras High Court challenging a single judge order, granting injunction in favour of India Records Manufacturing Company against him and others over select music from 30 South Indian films.

When the matter came up for hearing on Tuesday, the bench of Justices M. Duraiswamy and T.V Tamilselvi ordered notice to the respondents.

According to Ilaiyaraaja, the order passed by the single judge was without appreciation of proper facts, without material evidence and without impleading necessary parties i.e., the producers of films.

As per the appellant, the court erred in holding that the producers are the authors or the first owners of the musical works/sound recording. He claimed that the cinematograph film and the sound recording are two distinct categories of the intellectual property and that while, the sound recordings properly incorporated into a cinematograph film may constitute one category, the sound recording are of distinct category. Therefore, in the absence of transfer or assignment of his copyright, Illaiyaraja continued to be the author of the works and no rights were created on the respondents.

He added that the single judge had not examined even a single agreement when the respondents claimed that they have obtained rights from various producers by way of 22 different agreements.

Ilaiyaraaja further contented that the single judge has failed to appreciate true purport and intent of Proviso (b) of Sec. 17 of the Copyright Act, 1957, which recognize that if a cinematograph film is made for a valuable consideration at the instance of any person, such person shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright therein, this proviso is not limited to a producer of a cinematograph film and is wider in its scope and any person who makes a cinematograph film for a valuable consideration.

It is submitted that in case of musical work, as per clause 14 (a) (i), copyright is the exclusive right "to reproduce the work in any material form including the storing of it in any medium by storing in in electronic means." This gives a clear meaning that only the author who originally produced the musical work can grant right to reproduce it.

He further argued that the court did not have jurisdiction as the matter pertains to a commercial dispute and therefore it can be adjudicated only a commercial division of the High Court. Thus, the judgments was passed without jurisdiction.

Case Title: Illaiyaraja v. M/s Indian Record Manufacturing Co Ltd and Ors

Case No: OSA 75 of 2022 and CMP 5719 of 2022