CHENNAI: Ilaiyaraaja cannot claim himself as the sole creator of a song, since without lyrics there is nothing in the songs, observed the Madras High Court in the case of rights dispute over film songs between a private recording company 'Echo' and the ace music composer.
A division bench of Justice R Mahadevan and Justice Mohammed Shaffiq heard an appeal preferred by Echo challenging the single judge order, recognising special right of Ilayaraja over the 4,500 songs composed by him.
Senior counsel Vijay Narayan representing Echo cited section 17 of Copyrights Act and submitted that if a producer engages any composer then the ownership of the work transfers to the producer.
Ilayaraja may be the owner of the music notes which he composed but the entirety of the sound, the combination of music, lyrics and performance are belongs to the producer who engaged Ilayaraja.
Senior counsel Sathish Parasaran representing Ilayaraja submitted that the musical right continues with composer even without agreement and cited section 13 and 15 of the Copyrights Act.
The bench observed that Ilayaraja may have the rights over the music notes which he created, but he cannot claim the song is solely created by him and completely belonging to him, as the author of the lyric is some other person, without lyrics there is nothing in the song.
The bench also observed that the court is inclined to hear the appeal in detail and posted the matter to the second week of June. If any sale and commercial transactions have occured regarding the songs it would be subjected to this appeal, observed the bench.
Senior counsel Sathish Parasaran also submitted that now the Sony Music is claiming that it has acquired the rights of the songs composed by Ilayaraja from Echo. The Sony Music is also approached the Bombay High Court seeking to restrain Ilayaraja from perfom his songs, said the counsel.
Further, the counsel also submitted his apology for his submission on previous hearing and said that Ilayaraja is above Echo and Sony Music, in that context only he made such submission, but it was misunderstood, the counsel explained.