Court orders on using Ilayaraja songs

A few months back Ilayaraja had filed a petition seeking to restrain Agi Music private Limited, Echo Recording Company Private Limited, Unisys Info Solutions Private Limited, Agi Music, Malaysia and Giri Trading Company, Mumbai, from manufacturing and selling, distributing or in any manner infringing his exclusive right under the Copyright Act-1957. An interim injunction was given in this record.

But now the High Court of Madras has issued an absolute order to the audio companies from using any of Ilayaraja’s songs without his permission.

Talking about this Ilayaraja says, “The (Madras) High Court has ordered that my songs cannot be downloaded or sold through CDs or any other means. Henceforth, without getting the rights from me none should use my songs”. He also said that the rights are with him and the Producer’s Council. The legendary music director has composed music for about 4500 songs since 1970 in various languages, with many of them being chartbusters.