Sony Music Entertainment India Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as ‘Sony’) has approached Bombay High Court in a suit seeking permanent injunction Illiyaraaja’s Ilaiyaraaja Music N Management Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as ‘IMMP’) for infringement of its Copyright in Sound Recordings.

 

 

In December, 2021 Sony noticed that few songs, of which Sony had acquired Copyright ownership from Echo Recording Company Pvt. Ltd., were uploaded on YouTube and are being broadcasted to the public by IMMP.

 

 

Sony approached IMMP directly claiming that out of 536 title albums, owned by Sony, 228 were made available to public by IMMP thereby infringing Sony’s Copyrights. IMMP, however, claimed that the ownership of the broadcasted Works is with them and continued the broadcasting of the same to the public. Thus, in order to seek relief Sony approached the Bombay High Court against IMMP for Copyright infringement.

 

 

Reportedly, the Affidavit submitted on behalf of IMMP stated that the subject matter Works, falsely claimed to be owned by Sony, are being published by ‘Trend Loud Digital’ since the year 2015. It was further alleged that Sony was well aware of such publication while negotiating for buying entire repertoire of Illaiyaraaja and had also entered into Non- Disclosure Agreement in December, 2021. The matter has been adjourned and will be further heard by the Bombay High Court on 31st March, 2022.

 

 

Earlier, Illaiyaraaja had sued Echo Recording Company Pvt. Ltd. claiming rights over 310 songs composed by him and the Madras High Court had held Echo as the owner of Copyrights over the said songs. However, the moral rights with Illaiyaraaja over his composition were upheld. While Sony had used this order of the Madras High Court in the present matter before the Bombay High Court, the order got stayed recently in the appeal filed by Illaiyaraaja before the division bench of the Madras High Court.