Days after the release of Ajith Kumar-Adhik Ravichandran's Good Bad Ugly, Ilaiyaraaja's legal team had sent a notice to Naveen Yerneni and Yalamanchili Ravi Shankar of the Mythri Movie Makers banner for unauthorised usage of the singer-composer's songs in the film.
For the uninitiated, Good Bad Ugly featured three of Ilaiyaraaja's compositions – 'Oththa Roova' from Nattupura Pattu (1996), 'Ilamai Idho Idho' from Kamal Haasan's Sakalakala Vallavan (1982) and 'En Jodi Manja Kuruvi' from Vikram (1986).
On Monday, the Madras High Court restrained the producers of the film from exhibiting, screening, selling, distributing, publishing or broadcasting the movie on any platform, including OTT, along with three songs composed by Ilaiyaraaja.
The interim injunction was granted by Justice N Senthilkumar to the music composer's copyright infringement suit, which he filed against the production house. The judge leaned towards granting a temporary injunction in favour of the plaintiff, citing the production firm's inadequate response to a legal notice.
The judge noted that the music composer's legal team, in a four-page notice, noted that the songs have been "used, altered, and commercially exploited" without getting prior permission or payment of royalties to Ilaiyaaraja despite him holding all legal rights to his work. However, the production firm's response lacked specifics on the claimed authorisation from copyright owners, prompting the judge to grant an interim injunction in favour of the plaintiff due to insufficient evidence.
The composer had earlier fought several copyright cases and sent legal notices to films and their makers for unauthorised usage of his songs. Last year, he had issued a notice to production banner Sun Pictures over the illegal use of the song ‘Vaa Vaa Pakkam Vaa’ from the 1983 film Thanga Magan in their upcoming Rajinikanth-starrer Coolie. In the same year, he had settled a dispute with the makers of the hit Malayalam survival thriller Manjummel Boys for the unauthorised use of his iconic song 'Kanmani Anbodu'. He had sought compensation of Rs 2 crore, which was later settled for Rs 60 lakh.