Manjummel Boys row, and Ilaiyarajaa's other legal battles over his music
In a career spanning over four decades, the maestro has sent legal notices to his friend and singer SPB, director Shankar, Sun Pictures, others; here's a look back
Maestro Ilaiyarajaa has long been waging war against movie producers and composers for using his songs and background scores (including remixes) without prior permission and licensing.
The targets of his ire have been singers, music companies, film director and music apps.
Legal notice to Manjummel Boys
In the latest such instance, Ilaiyarajaa issued a legal notice over the unauthorised use of his song, Kanmani anbodu kaadhalan from the Tamil movie Guna (1991), in the Malayalam runaway hit, Manjummel Boys. This notice has been sent to producers Soubin Shahir, Babu Shahir and Shawn Antony, which has again brought up this issue of intellectual property rights in the world of film music to the fore.
Kanmani anbodu, originally sung by Kamal Hasaan and S Janaki, has a special place in Tamil cinema history. Ilaiyarajaa's move has come as a shock as Manjummel Boys, which released in February this year, has revived interest in the film Guna.
The Malayalam film is seen to have made the song popular again among the younger generation.
Numerous cases
In a career spanning over four decades, Ilaiyarajaa has fought several copyright cases against the 'illegal' use of his songs, and in fact, there is currently a long-standing case going on in the Madras High Court against a 2019 single judge order giving him 'special moral rights' over 4,500 songs he has composed for more than 1,000 films between the 1970s and 1990s.
Echo Recording Company has challenged this order, and the hearings are ongoing. The recording company’s counsel has argued that music composers in the film industry in India have lost their rights, except for the right to receive royalty, once they receive remuneration from a film producer for a particular movie.
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,
In a setback to Ilaiyarajaa, in April, a two-judge bench of the Madras High Court made a strong statement observing that Ilaiyarajaa cannot claim sole ownership of songs as lyrics play a critical vital part in them as well. The court said that the music maestro cannot claim sole ownership of the songs as "there are no songs without lyrics." The two-judge bench stated that the 80-year-old only has a right on the melody.
No room for misunderstanding
The High Court is still hearing the petition in detail and the next hearing is slated to take place on the second week of June. So, the issue as to who owns the song still hangs in a fine
balance. Meanwhile, in an interview to Hindustan Times, lyricist Sameer Anjaan said: "India has got Copyright Act, and each and every thing is written so clearly, there should not be any misunderstanding between the author, composer or producer."
According to Anjaan, the rights belong to the producer. "If somebody is claiming he has got 100 percent rights, I don't think this is the right approach. It's okay if Ilaiyaraja is ready to fight, but you have to follow the Act, you cannot not obey the law of the land. Whatever order the Court will pass, I will be satisfied with that," he added.
Legal notice to friend-singer SPB
Ilaiyaraaja did not flinch when he sent a legal notice to his good friend and singer SP Balasubramanyam a few years ago, when the latter was on a concert tour in the US. The notice was to stop SPB from singing his songs at public events.
Fans were aghast as the duo had worked together for several superhit songs. A shocked SPB wrote a long post on Facebook claiming that he was unaware of such a thing and promised to abide by the law.
In a Facebook post urging fans not to sensationalise the issue, he said, “Let me say, I am ignorant of these legalities. Charan (SPB's son) designed this world tour, and we kick-started this ‘SPB50’ in August in Toronto (Canada). We then performed in Russia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai, and did a lot of shows in India, too."
“I did not get any feelers from Raja’s office at that time. I do not know why now when we started US tour (a legal notice has been sent to him),” added SPB. “As I said earlier, if it is a law, so be it and I obey it."
Attack on Govind Vasantha
Ilaiyaraajaa lashed out at the composer of Vijay Sethupathi and Trisha starrer 96 for using some of his songs in the film to enhance a few key scenes.
In an interview, he harshly said that it was the composer Govind Vasantha's 'impotence/lack of masculinity' that made him use Ilaiyarajaa's music instead of creating his own. He said that if Govind Vasantha were truly talented he would have composed new songs to echo the 1980-90s period in which the story is set.
In the film, the heroine is a big fan of the singer S Janaki. Her rendering of the hit number Yamunai aattrilae from Mani Ratnam's Thalapathy is a part of the recurrent theme of the film.
While crew members said that they had indeed taken permission, Govind Vasantha released a video of himself playing the classic Ilaiyarajaa song Sundari kannaal oru seithi, again from Thalapathy. He has also captioned it 'Forever Fan of Ilaiyarajaa.
Shankar and Sun Pictures
In 2015, Shankar's production venture Kappal had Ilaiyaraaja's song Ooru vittu ooru vandhu in a teaser. Ilaiyaraaja sent a legal notice but the matter was later settled amicably.
Recently, the ace composer issued a legal notice to the production banner Sun Pictures over the allegedly illegal use of the song Vaa vaa pakkam vaa from the 1983 film Thanga Magan in their upcoming Rajinikanth-starrer Coolie. Earlier this month, Sun Pictures released a title reveal promo of the film, directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj, which included a remixed version of the iconic track.
The legal notice issued by Ilaiyaraaja’s legal counsel said that using the song is an intentional breach of the rights of one of the world’s top music composers. The notice demanded Sun Pictures to either obtain consent from Ilaiyaraaja for utilising the portion of the song or to remove the track from Coolie. Failure to do so will result in appropriate legal action, the notice added.
On warpath with Smule
It's not just Indian companies and film personalities that have raised Ilaiyarajaa's ire.
In 2017, he claimed copyright infringement by American karaoke app Smule for not seeking prior permission before using his tunes. Smule, which allows subscribers to sing popular songs, removed most of Ilaiyaraaja’s songs from its database.
The music composer's stance earned him a lot of negative remarks, since Smule is used by budding singers to share their talents. Many felt Ilaiyarajaa was not allowing young singing talent to bloom. However, his counsel pointed out that while Smule earns 'millions' through subscriptions, it doesn't share any of it with those creating the music.
