Ilaiyaraaja Cannot Claim Sole Ownership of Songs, Madras High Says

The HC held that commercial transactions between Ilaiyaraaja and streamers will be subject to the appeal's outcome.

Musician and composer Ilaiyaraaja. 

(Photo Courtesy: Instagram/ @ilayaraja_official)

In the legal dispute between Ilaiyaraaja and the private recording company Echo, a Madras High Court bench comprising of Justice Mahadevan and Justice Muhammad Sadiq observed that the musician can’t claim ‘sole ownership’ of songs because lyrics also play a crucial role in songs.

The Court also ordered that all commercial transactions between Ilaiyaraaja and music streaming platforms will be subject to the outcome of the appeal filed by Echo Recording Studio. 

The company argued that the rights for the songs lie with the producer of a film since they compensate the composer for their work and the composer, Ilaiyaraaja in this case, has rights over the melody. That being said, the company further argued, the composer can’t claim complete rights over the songs. Appearing for the appellant, senior counsel Vijay Narayan told the Bench that Echo had purchased the rights from film producers and so, the composer could not commercially exploit the songs by licensing them to streaming platforms. 

On the other hand, Ilaiyaraaja’s representation, senior counsel Satish Parasaran, referred to section 1 of the Copyright Act and contended that the copyrights for his client’s compositions would remain with him regardless of any agreements the film producers enter into.  

“The default position is that Ilaiyaraaja, having been the composer, is the owner of the copyright. If there is a challenge to his title, they have to show an employment agreement... Your Lordships can generally take my word that a music composer by the very innate work that is involved, is never an employee,” he argued.

Echo Recording Company Pvt Ltd had preferred an appeal before a Division Bench in the High Court against a single judge’s 2019 order that held that composer Ilaiyaraaja has a ‘special moral right’ over songs composed by him (4500 in number). 

The case’s next hearing has been scheduled for the second week of June.