The Madras High Court on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, ordered that any commercial transaction undertaken by music composer R. Ilaiyaraaja, with respect to around 4,500 film songs over which Echo Recording Private Limited has staked a claim, would be subject to the result of an appeal filed by the recording company.
The Second Division Bench of Justices R. Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq passed the interim order while adjourning the hearing of the original side appeal, preferred against a single judge’s 2019 order, recognising the composer’s special moral right over his compositions, to the second week of June.
Appearing on behalf of the appellant, senior counsel Vijay Narayan took the Division Bench through various provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957 and 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.
Stating that the copyright of those songs would vest with the film producers, he said Echo Recording had purchased those rights from multiple film producers and therefore the composer could not now, be allowed to commercially exploit those songs by giving a licence to music streaming platforms such as Spotify.
When the judges wanted to peruse the written agreements entered into between the film producers and the composer, the senior counsel said, Mr. Ilaiyaraaja ought to have produced those agreements when he filed a civil suit before the single judge in 2014. But none of them were submitted in court, he added.
On the other hand, senior counsel Satish Parasaran, representing the composer, stressed on a proviso to Section 17 of the Copyright Act to contend that the copyright for his client’s compositions would continue to subsist with him regardless of the agreements entered into with the film producers.
“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 to 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 said.
At this point in time, Justice Mahadevan said, the film songs in question might not carry much value without the lyrics. Therefore, he wondered whether Mr. Ilaiyaraaja could claim a right over the lyrics too, which had been penned by someone else, or restrict his claim only with the respect to the musical notes.
Answering this, Mr. Parasaran said, the lyricists would receive royalties irrespective of the songs being exploited commercially by the composer or the film producer. He told the court that Echo Recording had sold its rights to Sony Music which, in turn, had filed a case against Ilaiyaraaja before the Bombay High Court.
“Sony says Ilaiyaraaja has lost all his rights. He has no rights at all and that he can’t even perform his songs. Sony says Ilaiyaraaja is nobody now. During the previous hearing, I had stated only in that context that on Ilaiyaraaja’s works, there is nobody above, not Sony, not Echo... I may not be misunderstood,” he added.
