“Yes, I am above everybody,” retorted acclaimed music composer R. Ilaiyaraaja’s counsel on Wednesday, April 10, 2024, while opposing an appeal filed by Echo Recording Company Private Limited before the Madras High Court, against a single judge’s 2019 order recognising his ‘special, moral right’ over 4,500 songs composed by him for more than 1,000 movies between the 1970s and 1990s.
“I may sound arrogant but that is what it is... I am certainly not above God but below Him, I am above everybody,” the counsel said.
When the appeal was listed before Justices R. Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq, senior counsel Vijay Narayan, representing the appellant, said, the single judge had erred in interpreting the provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957. He said, the judge had permitted the composer to exploit his songs, though such a right had not been contemplated under Section 57.
Mr. Narayan said music composers in the film industry in India lost all their rights, except for the right to receive royalty, once they received remuneration from a film producer for a particular movie. Therefore, whether Mr. Ilaiyarajaa would fall under the definition of ‘author’ under the Copyright Act was itself a question to be decided in the appeal, he said.
The senior counsel also said, Echo Recording had purchased the rights for around 4,500 songs from the producers of the movies concerned and had been exploiting them commercially until the composer filed a civil suit before the High Court in 2014, seeking a permanent injunction against the recording companies and obtained a decree from the single judge on June 4, 2019.
Though the judge had permitted Echo Recording too, to commercially exploit the 4,500 songs strictly in the form and manner as contained in the cinematograph films without making any distortion or mutilation to them, the composer then filed an appeal against that portion of the order and obtained an interim stay against it from a Division Bench of Justices M. Duraiswamy and T.V. Thamilselvi in February 2022.
Utilising the other portion in which his ‘special, moral right’ had been recognised, “he [Mr. Ilaiyaraaja] has now given licence to popular music streaming platform Spotify to use those 4,500 songs for which I [Echo Recording] hold the rights. He is now getting royalty from me and money from Spotify also for the same songs. Apple Music and Amazon Music have stayed away because they are very careful when it comes to litigation,” Mr. Narayan said.
Mr. Narayan also told the Division Bench that the single judge had considered the present stature of Mr. Ilaiyaraaja being a musical genius while recognising his ‘special, moral right’ over his musical works and failed to note that the songs for which Echo Recording holds rights were composed by him when he was only a “budding musical genius” and did not hold the massive stature that he holds now.
On his part, senior counsel Satish Parasaran, representing Mr. Ilaiyarajaa, told the court that Echo Recording too, appeared to have sold its rights to Sony Music which had dragged the composer to the Bombay High Court. He said, there could not be a question at all on the issue that it was his client who was the author of the musical works composed by him and he was entitled to exploit them commercially.
Stating that there was no “tearing urgency” in seeking an interim stay for a 2019 order in 2024, Mr. Parasaran said, the composer had promptly filed an appeal against the adverse portion of the order and obtained an interim stay in 2022 itself. He said, the appeal filed by the composer in 2022 as well as the appeal filed by Echo Recording now could be tagged together and heard at a later date.
When Mr. Narayan suggested that the Bench could pass an interim order directing the composer to either deposit the income received by him from Spotify in a separate account or at least submit the accounts for this income in the court until the disposal of the present appeal, Mr. Parasaran vehemently opposed any such interim relief and contended that the composer could not be ordered to do so.
At this point, Mr. Narayan said: “He thinks he is above everybody,” and Mr. Parasaran retorted: “Yes, I am above everybody.” After hearing both sides, the judges decided to continue the hearing on April 16. Justice Mahadevan, the senior judge in the Bench, also asked Mr. Parasaran to come prepared to answer some of the questions to be posed by the court during the next hearing.
